For nurses and caregivers, the health crisis linked to the Covid-19 epidemic has caused a lot of stress and fatigue. A year after the start of the pandemic, many have stopped their profession. “Morale is at its lowest, because of the accumulated fatigue”.
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It was at the start of the second wave of the Covid-19 epidemic, in November 2020, that the list of healthcare workers who wanted to leave the public hospital began to grow. In some of them, fed up has never fallen since the discovery of the virus. “In fact, we forgot about fatigue because we are under pressure”, explains a nurse. “Me for example, I was in the operating room and overnight, without training, I found myself in intensive care. Even if this job is a vocation, bitterness is there. For a year, family life has been very affected by the changes: no rest, no recovery, less time off … In my entourage, I have colleagues who regularly talk about resigning “.
We’re in the crest of the wave and everyone’s morale is low
As we knew, the situation was already complicated but the health crisis was a real indicator of the difficulties of the hospital world. “After the health crisis, we will endure a social crisis in the hospital”, said a doctor from the Nancy CHRU. “What is certain is that the public hospital is preparing for a very difficult period”.
Request for availability, resignation, retirement
These departures are, according to union representatives, a growing phenomenon. “Since the social situation due to the coronavirus, we receive a lot of calls, more than usual for resignation or lay-off procedures”, explains Sophie Perrin-Phan Dinh, nurse and CGT representative at the Nancy CHRU. “They are mainly nurses. And today, many of them are threatening to leave their posts”.
We don’t train enough nurses
For his part, Stéphane Maire, CFDT delegate at the Nancy CHRU, said: “For example, I have the file of a nurse who wants to leave now and to whom we refuse the conventional rupture. We do not want to let them leave for lack of people of course, but also because we do not train enough nursing staff “.
Why are they resigning?
With Covid-19, the more the pace accelerates, the more the crisis worsens. “It accelerated with the third wave and therefore fed up with exhaustion. The schedules change all the time”, says a nurse. Same story with doctors.
For the first time in February, nurses stopped exhaustion illnesses
A phenomenon that can be found everywhere in France and also in hospitals in Paris. Jean-Michel Constantin is head of the anesthesia-intensive care unit at the Pitié-Salpêtrière Hospital. He tells : “It is very possible that we face a series of resignations in cascade because we continue to shoot fatigue with all the financial problems that add up. And then it is not over. At the moment when the Covid goes lower, we will have to speed up all the unscheduled operations, with a hospital that will be on its knees “.
According to the CGT Syndicate of the Nancy CHRU, the local human resources department estimates that in 2019, there were 80 departures, as many as in 2020. For the moment, he does not mention an upsurge in resignations.
French hospitals could soon be sorely lacking in nursing staff. A recent survey by the French Hospital Federation carried out among 300 establishments recorded more than 10,000 departures, resignations, retirements, end of contract, of nurses and nursing assistants.
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