Heatwave: At Digne-les-Bains hospital, "borderline cases are piling up, we're playing Russian roulette"

Digne-les-Bains (Alpes-de-Haute-Provence), special correspondent.

Orange alert in the Alpes-de-Haute-Provence region. As the heatwave has been engulfing the country for the past ten days , emergency services haven't waited for the weather alert to be in the red.

Since May 1st and at least until July 31st, admissions to the emergency room in Digne-les-Bains and partially to those in Manosque (part of the same territorial hospital group) are regulated twenty-four hours a day: people must call 15 before presenting themselves (with some exceptions). This system, which is becoming widespread across the country, has become THE government's response to the shortage of doctors and hospital overcrowding.

With the closure of the Digne-les-Bains emergency department on certain nights, coupled with that of Manosque and Sisteron, the department sometimes finds itself without a single service open, apart from the Smur (mobile emergency and resuscitation structure).

This "health blackout," as doctors call it , against a backdrop of a shortage of general practitioners and city specialists, is expected to reach a new level with the tourist season . In addition to the heat, the department is home to highly frequented sites such as the Verdon Gorges and hosts numerous sporting events. The town where Victor Hugo set part of his novel Les Misérables also attracts the curious for its slab of fossilized ammonites.

"Our department is large. For an intervention in the Digne area, the Smur can take up to an hour to arrive. It can be out for four hours. If someone comes in with chest pain, what do we do? The regional agency...