Growing shortage of nursing staff, closure of beds despite the increase in hospitalization needs… The Strasbourg emergency doctor Sébastien Harscoat and several of his colleagues are calling for a minute of silence on Friday “for the announced death of the public hospital”.
“We start winter without any possibility of opening any additional bed. I have been a doctor for 16 years. We had difficult times. But what we are experiencing there is unprecedented. »Dorothée Bazin-Kara works in the nephrology service of the University Hospitals of Strasbourg (HUS). His colleague Sébastien Harscoat shares the observation of a decade of “continuous degradation, in terms of budget, staff and hospital beds”. Emergency physician, he estimates that “between 15 and 20% of medical and surgical beds in HUS are currently closed”.
With his colleagues, he calls on all hospital staff to observe a minute of silence “for the announced death of the public hospital” in front of the forecourt of each HUS site, Friday December 10 at 2 pm.
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A growing understaffing since 2018
In his department, Sebastien Harscoat saw a doctor leave after a month of practice as the working conditions were so exhausting. Still in the emergency room, the doctor noticed that nurses were refused by management when they resigned. “To leave, they are forced to give up their post,” breathes the emergency physician who recalls:
“There was already a shortage of 150 caregivers at the HUS in 2018, but today there are 300 jobs lacking, including 150 specialized nurses, but also radio manipulators, laboratory technicians, social workers, physiotherapists …”
“Everyone is wondering if it would not be better to leave the hospital”
This constant degradation of the resources of the Strasbourg public hospital leads to a “vicious circle”, as Sebastien Harscoat describes it:
“In this shortage of nurses and caregivers, we end up falling into mistreatment by reminding caregivers about their rest or their leave. They end up throwing in the towel otherwise their health is damaged. Today I think everyone asks themselves the question every day: wouldn’t I be better off leaving the hospital? ”
For Vincent Poindron, doctor of the immunology service of the HUS, this situation of understaffing at the level of nurses has existed for more than ten years:
“Every summer, services are closed to allow nurses to take their vacations. But in a decade, no politician has tried to put an end to this plunge in public service… ”
Accumulated delay, reprogramming and risk of death
Dorothée Bazin-Kara describes the consequences of this shortage of nurses:
“The operating theaters only work 70-80%. And last summer it was even worse. Surgeons could not operate due to lack of personnel. So we cannot make up for the backlog accumulated with unscheduled hospitalizations to deal with the pandemic… ”
Likewise, cardiologist Floriane Zeyons describes daily stress in emergency management and patient triage:
“On hospitalizations, we have to make the choice between emergency patients who wait on a stretcher in a corridor, take patients scheduled for hospitalizations already reprogrammed three times or take people who are referred to us by their specialist. By dint of running out of space, we are doing bad medicine. One day or another, there will be too many accumulated risks and we will have deaths… ”
Asked about their demands, the doctors join in the objective stated by Sebastien Harscoat: “We just want to treat the sick properly!” “The emergency doctor wishes to alert” on the state of the public hospital, dying and bloodless of its caregivers. Because it is up to the population to mobilize so that the institutions take real action in order to save the public hospital. ”
A hospital awaiting government support
In recent months, Rue89 Strasbourg has repeatedly revealed the difficulties of the Strasbourg public hospital. Lacking staff, the hepato-gastro department of Hautepierre could no longer ensure the safety of patients in mid-October 2021. Pediatrics faces similar difficulties, between closed beds and understaffed. The heads of service of this pole are forced to think about the abandonment of certain offers of care. Thus, to avoid a “regression”, the Hospitals of Strasbourg are asking for aid of 100 million euros to the ARS.
The mayor of Strasbourg Jeanne Barseghian (EELV) and her deputy in charge of health, Alexandre Feltz (PP), hope to draw the government’s attention to the situation of the HUS while Prime Minister Jean Castex (LREM) is due to go to the New civilian hospital on Saturday:
“We expect the State to provide support commensurate with the situation of the most indebted hospital center in France. This situation results in particular from choices which favored the offer of private care to the detriment of the public hospital. “
In an interview with Latest News from Alsace published Thursday evening, the Prime Minister confirmed that the State would take over 190 million euros of the debt of the HUS, or 40% of the total debt of the public establishment (as the Regional Health Agency l ‘had indicated to the president of the establishment committee in September, see our interview). Jean Castex also confirmed that the State would finance up to 75% of the 28 million euros needed to renovate the child psychiatry premises (read the report by Rue89 Strasbourg in these premises).
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