Pediatrics crisis: 10,000 caregivers ask Emmanuel Macron to act without delay

by time news

“Your silence is deafening.” The attack directly targets the President of the Republic and comes from hundreds of doctors. In a forum in the “World”, 10,000 caregivers, including 400 pediatrician heads of service and all learned pediatric societies, call on the Head of State to intervene without delay in the situation at the hospital.

On October 21, some 4,000 caregivers challenged the President of the Republic in a letter published by our newspaper, where they denounced the saturation of pediatric services with “children in daily danger” against the backdrop of an early bronchiolitis epidemic. “A month later, we remain without a response from you: your silence is deafening”, castigate these staff.

They face an unprecedented epidemic of bronchiolitis in babies. The peak is expected “towards the end of the week,” said the union of liberal pediatricians on Monday, which calls for a strengthening of barrier gestures to counter this disease, which is generally mild but which can be serious in newborns.

But for the signatories, these precautions will not prevent the evil already underway. “Throughout this month, we have been confronted with what we dared not imagine: daily, children hospitalized on stretchers or on their parents’ knees in the emergency room, in an office refitted for the occasion, children intubated and hospitalized without a room in the resuscitation corridor, too late care and precarious care, premature returns home and disaster returns of children sent home for lack of space, transfers out of sectors by the dozens in resuscitation, but also in classic hospitalization ”, denounce the signatories of the tribune.

“Bad remake of the Covid-19 pandemic”

This epidemic has, according to them, “turned into a bad remake of the Covid-19 pandemic”. The latter, like the flu, threatens to create a triple epidemic in the hospital. “We thought that transferring children 300 km from home was a major degradation of care, we now see that there could be worse: no longer being able to transfer because the epidemic has swept everywhere, saturating all the services of French pediatrics. We used to feel guilty sending teenagers to adult services, now we are sending 3-year-olds”.

In addition to the recognition of the State’s responsibility in this crisis, these doctors are calling for several concrete measures. Such as “taking the necessary measures to secure the work of caregivers in the hospital”, recognizing “the specificity and expertise of paediatrics”, putting the hospital service “at the center of decisions”, increasing “the number of young people trained in care professions and to ensure general training in paediatrics for everyone, in particular by reinstating paediatrics in nursing schools and by restoring the possibilities of financing training in childcare”.

“The current crisis is pushing ever more resignations. Back to the wall, will France be able to save its children? conclude the caregivers.

The Minister of Health François Braun, who promised in the face of the pediatric crisis dedicated meetings in the spring, will set up an ad hoc committee on December 7 to prepare for the deadline and co-chaired by the former Secretary of State Adrien Taquet , the ministry announced on Tuesday.

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