“Crowded corridors are neither attractive nor acceptable”: €15 million to be invested to expand the emergency department at Nîmes University Hospital

Rénover et agrandir les urgences : un gros chantier de 15 M€. Midi Libre – MiKAEL ANISSET

Un épisode de grippe un peu violent… et les urgences saturent !

Flu but also bronchiolitis and Covid. A few days ago, the CHU had to switch to a white plan to best absorb the influx of patients in the emergency room. A recurring tension that recalls the need to expand and restructure these emergency rooms which receive an average of 300 people per day. “The initial project had the disadvantage of having too limited a land footprint”, explains Fédéric Rimattei, the director of the CHU, who will therefore increase the budget from €5 million to €15 million (in equity) for this major work with delivery in a few years. “Because reviewing the emergency rooms also means rethinking the upstream and downstream sectors”.

Complex work that will be done on an occupied site

“In fact, the environment is too constrained given the number of patients, even though the department had already been renovated a few years ago. The number of daily visits has doubled in the meantime. We are therefore going to extend the service by freeing up adjacent areas. We also need to rethink the routes for greater performance and connections between the different departments. But this is complex work that will be done on an occupied site.”

Larger and better organized emergency departments that will also make the department attractive to new doctors: “In the emergency department, we have almost full staff (60 FTEs) of emergency doctors) but the crowded corridors are not attractive or acceptable in working conditions”, adds Michel Prudomme, the president of the CME.

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