The new year starts as badly as the previous one ended. During the holiday season, emergency services, doctors’ practices and SOS doctors’ offices were overwhelmed by the influx of patients. Caught between the fires of the bronchiolitis epidemic, Covid and the explosion of flu cases, the white coats crack.
“Over 90 hours” on a stretcher
At the Thionville hospital (Moselle), the emergency room worked in slow motion until January 6: 55 out of 59 nurses and nursing assistants were placed on sick leave, often by decision of the emergency room doctors themselves, i.e. almost all of the personal. “I’ve been coming to work for six months with a knot in my stomach, six months I’ve been afraid to open a door and find a dead man on a stretcher behind me”, a young nurse, arrested for burnout, told AFP. The service registers 100 passages a day, but due to lack of staff and available beds, the regional hospital is struggling to find spaces to accommodate those in need.
“For the past few days, patients have been on stretchers in the corridor, when you’re lucky to have stretchers. One night, we had none left, a lady lay down on the ground, testifies a nursing assistant. Several caregivers also report a 90-year-old patient who stayed “more than 90 hours” on a stretcher, and who has “it was only changed once” in this period.
The young recruits do not stay
As Clarisse Mattel, nurse and general secretary of the MICT-CGT union, deplores, “We have come to this because, despite their efforts, the teams are exhausted, exhausted and unable to provide quality care, which is unbearable for them. The entire public hospital is in crisis. We can no longer take proper care of patients.”
Small detail: this service was directed by François Braun until his appointment as Minister of Health in July. “The problems, he has known them for some time”, points out a nurse.
The case of Thionville is far from isolated. The billions of euros of the Ségur de la santé injected since 2020 have not been enough to reduce tension and strengthen the attractiveness of the sector. In the emergency room of the university hospital of Strasbourg (Bas-Rhin) the young recruits do not stay. The turnover is huge. “Sometimes we do blood tests in the corridors, tests between screens… We wish we could do better than that, but we only have two arms, two legs, we do the best we can” , points out a nurse.
fatal consequences
“We are getting around 220 passes a day to our two emergency reception sites. This is an increase of 6% compared to 2021. , already a record year, says Professor Pascal Bilbaut, head of emergencies with AFP. Almost everywhere in France, system “failures” have disastrous consequences. The French union Samu-Urgences has identified 30 of them “unexpected deaths” people waiting for hospital treatment since 1 December in France.
The mobilizations multiplied almost everywhere. Between Christmas and New Year’s the doctors went on strike to ask for the consultation to be revalued at 50 euros. More than 50% of clinics are closed, says the Doctors for Tomorrow collective. At the Sarreguemines hospital (Moselle), a movement hit the emergency room on December 23 and should harden over the next few days.
Six months after François Braun’s arrival at the ministry, the situation has never been so degraded. Despite the urgency, it is only in January that he should announce the main lines of restructuring of the treatment offer, in hospitals and in the city, on the basis of the work of the National Refoundation Council, so defamed by the unions.
