Posted Sep 28, 2022, 9:02 AM
In 2021, the number of places in full hospitalization continued to decline in the face of the rise in partial hospitalization. This is the main lesson of the last DREES study on the subject, published this Wednesday. In addition to the Covid epidemic, which again led to the closure of wards and double rooms last year, hospital capacities have also suffered from “staff constraints that do not allow beds to be maintained”.
Thus, as of December 31, 2021, the 2,984 public and private hospitals had exactly 382,587 full hospital beds, i.e. 4,316 fewer in one year. A provisional figure down slightly compared to 2020 (-4,900) but still higher than the decreases observed before the health crisis.
In total, more than 21,000 beds were eliminated over the period from the end of 2016 to the end of 2021, notes the Drees. This largely corresponds to the first five-year term of the President of the French Republic Emmanuel Macron. Twice as much as under his predecessor François Hollande (-10,000 beds), but significantly less than during the mandate of Nicolas Sarkozy (-37,000).
“Ambulatory shift”
This long-term trend “reflects the desire to reorganize the offer in a context of outpatient shifts”, an expression used to designate the growing share of care without overnight stays in the hospital, particularly in surgery. The number of “day” hospital places has also continued to rise: 2,743 were opened in 2021, bringing their total to 82,502, i.e. 9,000 more in five years.
Hospitalization at home also recorded a clear increase in its capacity, by 6.8% after a jump of more than 10% in 2020. With 22,800 patients “able to be treated simultaneously on the territory”, this mode of care now represents “7.6% of total capacity in full hospitalization” excluding psychiatry, compared to 2.1% in 2006.
As for critical care, the DREES recalls that capacities in this area exploded by 14.5% in 2020, due to the covid crisis. If in 2021 the number of intensive care beds fell by 3.8%, the institute notes that “the total number of intensive care beds remains however 10.2% higher than its level at the end of 2019, before the health crisis ” .
With AFP
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