The Federation of Private Hospitals (FHP) wishes to increase its capacities to alleviate the influx of Covid patients. “Our establishments have nearly 2,000 resuscitation beds, most of which are dedicated to Covid patients, but it’s not just resuscitation! All of our establishments are mobilized today, for follow-up care or the management of non-Covid surgical patients, ”explains Lamine Gharbi, President of the FHP.

If he admits that “cooperation was not smooth at the very beginning” of the epidemic, Lamine Gharbi affirms that today it is going well. “It is this reality that must be remembered, even if there may still be some rare exceptions to the rules of proper functioning in force everywhere in France,” he insists.

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Organize cooperation

The fight against the epidemic is coordinated at the regional level, by the ARS (Regional Health Agencies). In all the territories, they support the establishments to manage the flow of patients according to the available beds. If necessary, they organize transfers.

“At the same time, public and private establishments communicate directly with each other to share information”, specifies Lamine Gharbi “When the emergency requires it, they distribute the care according to their resources. Concretely, this is done through messaging applications. Naturally, the device varies according to the territories, according to whether they are more or less affected by the virus and according to the number of establishments ”, he adds.

Strengthen public / private collaboration

According to Mr. Gharbi, cooperation can be further accentuated between public and private. The 1,030 private hospitals and clinics spread across the country have nearly 40,000 surgical beds, 18,000 medical beds and 3,000 continuous care beds, according to the president of the FHP.

“Our resuscitation bed capacity, close to 2,000 beds, could be doubled to reach 4,000 beds. In Ile-de-France, for example, the private sector could take care of 25 to 30% of patients hospitalized in intensive care as we had done during the first wave. During the peak, we had received 27% of resuscitations, ”he says. “Without the private sector, the French health system would not have been able to cope with the health crisis we are experiencing. “