Le Beck Jan 6 (BUS): France is allowing healthcare workers with coronavirus but with few or no symptoms to continue treating patients rather than isolate themselves, an unusual temporary measure aimed at alleviating staff shortages in hospitals and other facilities caused by An unprecedented explosion of cases. The Associated Press (AP) reports that the special exemption for France’s quarantine rules being rolled out in hospitals, nursing homes, doctors’ offices and other essential health services testifies to the increasing pressure on the French medical system by the rapidly spreading omicron variant. .
It’s a calculated risk, with health care workers infected with COVID-19 potentially infecting colleagues and patients being evaluated against what the government says is a necessity to keep essential services running.
Outside the health sector, for those not covered by the special exemption, France’s quarantine rules require at least five days of self-isolation for fully vaccinated people and those who test positive. For the unvaccinated, self-isolation is at least seven days.
Governments and industries have warned that isolation rules are creating staff shortages across a range of sectors as the omicron variant is causing an increase in infections in many countries. In some places, quarantines have been shortened, including in France, to bring workers back to their sites.
But in Europe, France appears to be the only one now also opening up the possibility for healthcare staff to work while infected.
There are increasing signs that the variant is causing less severe disease. But the flood of infections is still sending increasing numbers of people to hospitals, putting those institutions under pressure, especially when medical workers are also absent.
French hospital authorities have said the new flexibility from self-isolation will help them fill staff gaps if and when they are opened.
said Dr. Marc Lyon, Head of the Department of Anesthesia at the North Hospital in the south of Marseille.
“But we’re not in that situation yet,” he said.
The new rules were detailed in a Health Department alert letter sent Sunday to hospitals, care facilities and health authorities and seen by The Associated Press. Changes are being rolled out this week.
The ministry’s warning said the flood of HIV infections in France posed a “high risk of disrupting the supply of care”. He described the measure as “exceptional and temporary” and said it would be lifted when the system was no longer saturated with virus cases.
The exemption opens the possibility for doctors, hospital staff, workers with disabilities and other vulnerable people to remain in work despite positive tests, provided they are fully vaccinated and not coughing or sneezing.
In the Paris region, hospitals said the measure could be applied as a last resort if infected staff were urgently needed to help keep services open and if they volunteered to work.
“If they are tired, have a sore throat and prefer to stay at home, no one will force them to come to work with Covid,” said Romaine Eskenazi, director of communications at two hospitals in the northern suburbs of the French capital.
Professor Rémy Salomon, chair of the Paris Hospital Authority committee, said that while the absence of staff was a “huge problem”, allowing infected staff to work was “extremely difficult to implement”.
“Health workers are telling themselves, ‘I’m afraid of passing the virus on to patients,'” he told France Info radio.
Department of Health instructions state that, where possible, infected workers should not have contact with unvaccinated patients or those at risk of becoming seriously ill with COVID-19.
The ministry said they should also limit their interaction with colleagues as much as possible and cannot participate in joint activities where face masks are removed, such as breaks for food and drinks.
With the highest number of confirmed daily virus cases in Europe, France is in an increasingly difficult situation.
The average number of daily cases in France more than doubled in a week, and the country reported a record 332,252 cases of the virus per day on Tuesday, as the omicron variable weighs on hospital staff and threatens to disrupt health care, transportation, schools and other services.
More than 20,000 people have been hospitalized with the virus in France, a number that has been rising steadily for weeks but not as sharply as infection rates.
Covid-19 patients fill more than 72 percent of intensive care beds in France, and the famous healthcare system is once again showing signs of stress. Most virus patients in intensive care units are not vaccinated, even though 77 percent of the population have received at least two doses.
More than 124,000 people have died from the virus in France, which is among the highest death tolls recorded in the world.
MI