Tired by the first phase of the health crisis, doctors and nurses are asking for additional resources and resources to tackle winter and the resurgence of the coronavirus pandemic.
While the number of cases of Covid-19 contamination has broken records in recent days, and the number of patients hospitalized in intensive care continues to increase, to reach its highest level since last May, the figures show the arrival of a second epidemic wave in France.
“The next three weeks are going to be very complicated,” said epidemiologist and member of the Scientific Council Arnaud Fontanet to our colleagues at Sunday newspaper.
As of Saturday, 26,896 cases had been detected in the past 24 hours, and 54 additional deaths were to be deplored. The test positivity rate climbed to 11%.
“Return to abnormality”
“We once again need the population to manage this epidemic because one thing that works is prevention measures”, Dr. Agnès Ricard-Hibon warned on our antenna this Sunday, president of the French Society of Emergency Medicine.
“The great concern of caregivers is having to take care of a patient who has chances of survival, but for whom we will not be able to offer the quality, the safety of the care that he deserves (… ) However, there is a bit of a return to the abnormality of before, with difficulties to hospitalize patients, patients who stagnate in emergency structures awaiting hospital beds, “he said. she continued.
37% of nurses want to change jobs
According to a survey carried out by the National Order of Nurses and relayed by The Parisian, 37% of these caregivers want to change jobs since the Covid-19 crisis, and 57% believe they are burned out.
At the Nantes University Hospital, caregivers who tested positive for the coronavirus continue to work despite everything. Asymptomatic, they risk infecting their patients. A fact that illustrates the crisis that the hospital is going through and the lack of arms necessary for its proper functioning, denounce some members of the medical profession.
“When we are forced to employ people who are Covid positive during an epidemic period, we must understand that there we have reached the stage of zero level of the organization, zero level of the staff reserve and in fact, it is as if we were at war, and the invaders are about to enter the city, and we are obliged to ask the amputees to go and try to fight, there it is the same “, criticized Arnaud Chiche on BFMTV, anesthesiologist in Hénin-Beaumont (Pas-de-Calais) and founder of the Santé en danger collective.
“When we know that the Covid will be in our life for several years, it is not necessarily very reassuring”, worries the anesthesiologist.
“A social crisis” among caregivers
In the JDD Today, we point out the fact that despite the summer lull on the epidemic front, all operations and medical acts deprogrammed last spring could not be “caught up”, and risk colliding with the influx of new Covid patients in healthcare facilities.
“I was in admiration of the mobilization and commitment of the staff, and indeed they are tired, and indeed there has been a social crisis for a certain number of times,” points out Agnès Ricard-Hibon.
“We go to war with a much smaller and less cheerful army. We are here for that, we will do the work, but we are exhausted”, admits David Luis, head of the intensive care unit of the Beauvais hospital (Oise) , in the JDD.
“The caregivers are no less motivated but are a little disillusioned, they are tired, can’t take it any longer, and I feel that there is less enthusiasm for this epidemic rebound than for the first wave where we lived on adrenaline “, abounds Frédéric Adnet, head of the SAMU-SMUR emergency department at the Avicenne hospital in Bobigny (Seine-Saint-Denis), on BFMTV.
“What worries me a lot now is that we will not be able to do as for the first wave. That is to say, we will not be able to bring back provincial staff to come and support us, we will be able to not transfer patients to the provinces, because the province is as affected as [Paris]. So we risk, with fewer patients, being more in difficulty than during the first wave, “fears the emergency physician.
“Too much resilience”
For Dr Agnès Ricard Hibon, the current crisis can act as an indicator of pre-existing dysfunctions:
“We chose this profession to heal. There is resilience, but probably too much resilience. […] There, we pay for the fact that there was an abandonment of the hospital. We are realizing that the hospital crisis is causing a major medico-economic – and economic crisis – and that this is affecting the whole country. “
—
