The Minister of Health, François Braun, announced on Sunday October 23 the release of 150 million euros for “hospital services under strain”, especially in paediatrics. This plan should allow “an increase in staff, provided that we find them”insisted the minister on BFM-TV, against the backdrop of the crisis in the pediatric emergency services.
“It’s not new, unfortunately, the hospital has been mistreated for decades”reacted the Minister of Health, after more than 4,000 pediatric caregivers sent an open letter to Emmanuel Macron on Friday, published by The Parisianto denounce the saturation of hospital pediatric services and its consequences on the health of the children concerned.
“We have an earlier than usual bronchiolitis epidemic which arrives at a hospital out of breath and on which we must do basic work.Mr. Braun observed on Sunday. “Of course we are going to take care of all the children who need to go to the hospital, but we have to help ourselves by avoiding going to the hospital when it is not necessary. »
“Bandages on a wooden leg”
Caregivers castigate structural difficulties, including unsuitable working conditions and care, the results of a “irresponsible political inaction”. They also denounce “remote transfers” of children, sometimes in towns far from “several hundred kilometers” from their house.
According to them, the bronchiolitis epidemic is saturating services already “exsanguinated”while“an ever-increasing number of paramedical and medical staff positions are vacant”. This respiratory disease which affects babies and sometimes leads them to hospital has now spread to almost all of metropolitan France.
To respond to this new bout of fever in the hospital, the executive has planned a “immediate action plan”announced on CNews the spokesman of the government, Olivier Véran. “We trigger where necessary the famous white plans to recall additional personnel and to have better cooperation in the territories”, he detailed. The white plan contains organizational measures intended to deal with an exceptional health situation or the increased activity of a hospital.
“We explain that we want structural, urgent reforms and we are answered with a white plan used once a year since 2019. The white plan means moving nurses, canceling leave…, it only strains the how we practice care »replied Mélodie Aubart, neuropediatrician at the Necker-Enfants Malades Hospital in Paris, one of the signatories of the letter to Mr. Macron. “We cannot continue to permanently put bandages on a wooden leg”she summarizes.
“The government had to react quickly but there is a real fundamental problem”also reacted Isabelle Desguerre, head of the neuropediatrics department at the Necker hospital in Paris, and also a signatory of the letter to the Head of State. “One hundred and fifty million is a figure effect, the problem is not the money but recognizing the status of caregivers, making them want to work in hospitals, putting real ratios of caregivers per child…”she points out.
“There is a problem and we know it”recognized Saturday on Franceinfo the Minister Delegate to the Minister of Health, Agnès Firmin-Le Bodo. “We are counting on solidarity between hospitals, on solidarity with city medicine and are working on the longer opening in the evening of medical centers on duty”she said, specifying to bring the ” support “ from government to caregivers.