Paris medics fear worst of COVID wave still to come

Paris medics fear worst of COVID wave still to come

PARIS: In the COVID-19 intensive care unit of the Antony Private Hospital south of Paris, no bed stays free for long and medics wonder when their workload will finally peak. As one recovered elderly patient is being wheeled out of the ward, smiling weakly, boss Jean-Pierre Deyme is on the phone arranging the next arrival and calling out instructions to staff. Louisa Pinto, a nurse of nearly 20 years' experience, gestures to the vacated room where a cleaner is already at work, scrubbing down the mattress for the next arrival. "The bed won't even have time to cool down,“ she says as the patient monitoring system beeps constantly in the background.

For now, everything is stable in the 20-odd beds around her where COVID -19 victims lie inanimate, in a silent battle with the virus. Paris is going through a third wave of the pandemic which risks putting even more strain on saturated hospitals than the first wave in March and April last year. "With what's coming in April, it's going to be very complicated,“ says Pinto, a mother of three who hasn't had a holiday since last summer and like other staff will be cancelling a planned break this month.

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