For the duration of the Olympic and Paralympic Games (JOP), a temporary health center – or polyclinic according to the official term – will be operational in the heart of the Olympic Village, which will accommodate more than 15,000 people (athletes and members of the delegations), in order to to take care of emergencies and the first call for a doctor. The Assistance Publique-Hôpitaux de Paris (AP-HP) will be responsible for creating and managing this center, the operation and financing of which will be governed by an agreement concluded with the JOP Organizing Committee (Cojop ). This has just been signed, announced the Minister for Sports and the JOP, Amélie Oudéa-Castéra, on Tuesday March 21, during the examination by the National Assembly of the bill relating to the JOP and various other provisions.
This agreement provides in particular that Paris 2024 will reimburse to the nearest euro the direct and indirect expenses incurred by the AP-HP and related to the cost of operation (remuneration of staff, cost of supplies, equipment, medication). The AP-HP will second an administrative director, a medical director, a health manager, as well as regarding fifteen referents per discipline exercised.
At the peak of activity, the AP-HP estimates at just under 200 professionals the necessary forces, all specialties and trades combined, including 35 doctors, around fifteen nurses and nurses, 28 physiotherapists. It will not only be AP-HP staff, even if the latter will be responsible. And they will all be volunteers, mainly French (regarding 200), but also international.
AP-HP reimbursed “30 days following the invoices are issued”
The running cost is estimated “to date at 3.8 million euros”according to the Social Affairs Committee of the National Assembly, which specifies that the agreement does not relate to the compensation, for the AP-HP, of the possible care of athletes and supervisors within hospitals.
These costs will be covered by private insurance, contracted by Paris 2024, up to at least 200,000 euros, and it is the State which will bear the expenses exceeding the amount of this cover.
Reimbursements to the AP-HP by the Organizing Committee of the Games will be made “30 days following the issue of the invoices. This commitment is made black on white in the agreement., Amélie Oudéa-Castéra said on Tuesday. In view of the health needs during the previous Olympic Games, the AP-HP estimates that around 700 consultations per day should be carried out.
In the event of heavier care to be operated, three referral hospitals of the AP-HP will take over: for the athletes, Bichat, for the media, Avicenne, for the delegations, the European hospital Georges-Pompidou.
Concerns regarding “the continuity of the functioning of the AP-HP”
The creation of this temporary health center and the call for volunteers raise concerns regarding a possible “siphoning” of human resources from hospitals, especially in Ile-de-France, so these establishments are already usually experiencing tensions in summer personnel matters.
“The allocation of resources for the polyclinic center must not be made to the detriment of the continuity of the functioning of the AP-HP, when we know that there are already 7% to 8% of nursing posts that are not not provided”, thus launched, on Tuesday, Jérôme Guedj (Socialist Party)
“Last summer, one in five services was in danger of closing due to lack of staff in our country”noted for his part Léo Walter (La France insoumise), considering “urgent to assess the impact in terms of reception and the means necessary for hospitals and to draw the consequences”.
“We absolutely all share this importance given to the continuity of the care offer”replied Amélie Oudéa-Castéra, adding that “it is something that we are working on and which we discuss a lot with the Minister of Health and the Cojop, including in the methods of selection of these medical volunteers, who will come as much as possible in complementarity and in no case in a logic withdrawal of medical forces for our own hospital system”.
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In her report for an opinion on the Olympic bill, drawn up on behalf of the Social Affairs Committee, the deputy (Rennaissance) Christine Le Nabour nevertheless asked that “all assumptions [soient] seriously anticipated and planned so as not to generate, at the last minute, excessive strain on the staff of hospitals in the region”.
At this stage, the Ile-de-France Regional Health Agency considers that “nine hospitals” will be “potentially very impacted” by the Games, according to the MP, who calls “to anticipate without delay” the possible tensions and the reinforcements which might be necessary.
