A center to treat the burn-out of health professionals and the hospital

2023-07-18 07:07:37

A hiding place or an outstretched hand? Since May, the university hospital center de Purpan in Toulouse has created a center for the prevention of professional exhaustion of carers (Peps). Clearly, a physical site to prevent and act against burn-out health professionals far from being spared by their working conditions. Indeed, 50 to 66% of caregivers have been affected by burnout since the Covid period. State of physical, emotional and mental exhaustion are all symptoms that these personnel know in this dying health system. “There is an increased workload, a lack of staff, a relationship with patients that has changed… All these reasons have led to an increase in this professional burnout”, notes Professor Patrice Hérin, head of Peps .

“I had to do the work of colleagues on sick leave for Covid, or exhaustion… I was doing this work by vocation but I did not know how to see my limits. I had become a robot. I no longer felt any empathy for the patients and even my colleagues. One morning, I woke up crying with rage, unable to get up… I understood that it was too late”, testifies a nurse in a public hospital in the Toulouse suburbs on arrest for burn-out for five months already. . The one who prefers to remain anonymous confides: “I like my work. I know why I do it. But under these conditions, it is impossible for me to resume. I no longer feel capable of it, either physically or mentally. I can’t take it anymore and I’m not the only one…”

Caring for caregivers

In this brand new center, unique in France and fully funded by the CHU, the professor and his team of psychologists embark on a perilous mission: to treat the ailments of caregivers. “These patients – a bit special – must be referred to us by an occupational doctor or a general practitioner who considers that the caregiver-patient must be taken care of. Only liberal professionals can come on their own. Then we take care of them”, develops Professor Patrice Hérin. Indeed, whether they are public or private, internal or in the secretariat, all people working in care can turn to this new center.

“Here, we are interested in the three stages of exhaustion. We prevent, by informing about the risks and the symptoms. We take care of the disease as such via individual follow-up or group work and finally we avoid relapse and we reintegrate the caregiver, ”adds the doctor. In all, since May, around twenty people – as much from the private sector as from the public, from the health executive, to caregivers and medical secretaries – have passed through the door of the Peps.

“We don’t make them resilient”

If the support is done first psychologically, this Peps does not want to be impassive in the face of the health system. “We don’t make them resilient. There is obviously an organizational support to put in place. Occupational medicine is there to bring up problems and improve the daily lives of caregivers. We do not reintegrate these people so that they undergo the same treatment, ”admits the doctor specializing in the work. A last task which is not the least for this center in full test: to accompany the reorganization of the hospital to prevent as much as possible, the burn-outs.

But to whose detriment? “It feels like the government can never afford anything for health. If a nurse returns to a different position after her sick leave, who will fill hers? If a caregiver goes on part-time, who to take her hours? Helping one is making the case of another worse, at the present time”, breathes a nursing assistant from the CHU, bitter while smoking her cigarette during one of her rare breaks. The latter, who also wishes to remain discreet, behind her 15-year career, nevertheless welcomes this “small giant step for our mental health”. This center, she does not criticize it, “far from it”, but accuses what led to its creation.