2023-10-09 05:15:11
“We have the feeling that newborns, especially sick ones, don’t count! » The alert launched by doctors from the neonatology departments is based on the inventory just drawn up by the French Society of Neonatology (SFN). According to an audit which must be made public in the coming days, critical care services which receive sick or very vulnerable newborns (very prematurity, congenital malformations, pathologies linked to complicated childbirth, etc.) are in a state of “very worrying”.
Insufficient number of beds, extremely high occupancy rates, understaffed nurses… The data compiled for the first time by this learned society, from several surveys – one dating from February, the other from June – allow to shine the light in this ultra-specialized sector, also disrupted by the structural crisis which is shaking the hospital. More than four fifths of the approximately seventy services which have intensive care and resuscitation (known as type 3) have testified about their situation.
If intensive care for adults appeared in the spotlight during the crisis linked to Covid-19, as did pediatric intensive care in winter 2022 during the bronchiolitis epidemic, neonatology, which takes care of new- born in vital danger at birth or requiring continuous monitoring, often remains in the shadows.
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However, there are indicators that are worrying: infant mortality is on the rise, recalls the SFN in the introduction. “In contrast to what is observed in many Western countries, where it continues to decline, infant mortality has been increasing in France since 2012. The country has fallen from 3rd to 20th position in Europe. » Cet ” excess “ mortality among children under 1 year of age is largely due to ” excess “ of neonatal mortality, recalls the note: “The first month of life accounts for 74% of deaths. »
Among the hypotheses put forward are the increase in the age of mothers at the time of childbirth or even that of multiple pregnancies, but it is difficult not to question the state of the healthcare system.
“Huge pressure on the teams”
First observation which appears in the four-page note: the provision of neonatal critical care “remains insufficient”, despite the decline in the birth rate in recent years. The number of bed closures due to lack of staff, however, appears limited: in June, these closures affected on average 5% of the approximately 1,500 beds in the sector.
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