The public hospital is in bad shape. As the coronavirus pandemic mobilizes a significant number of caregivers and places for patients, the situation tends to worsen. Currently, one in five beds is closed in large hospitals, reveals Release in its October 27 edition. Blame it on a glaring lack of personnel, according to a survey published on October 5 by the Scientific Council and its president, Doctor Jean-François Delfraissy. The government has opened a survey of health facilities.
All services seem to be affected by the phenomenon. Caregivers, exhausted and tired of the lack of resources in their establishment, sometimes decide to leave the public hospital, as we had already explained in our columns.
Many hospitals without emergencies at night
Faced with these defections, some hospitals have had no choice but to close their emergency services, partially or totally. Last “victim” to date: the Dracénie hospital center, in Draguignan, in the Var. Patients will no longer be able to go to the emergency room at night, as of October 29, for at least five weeks. Only cases of vital emergency will be accepted. The other patients, suffering for example from strains, or from wounds, will be “ relocated to other neighboring establishments such as Fréjus, Brignoles or Toulon », Confirms a doctor to France Bleu Provence. Six doctors work in the Draguignan emergency room while 18 would be needed to make the service work properly. But the hospital is struggling to recruit.
He is far from the only one. All over France, establishments are taking the same radical measures. The Redon hospital center (Ille-et-Vilaine) is trying by all means to hire staff for the emergency department. In vain. This summer, he resigned himself to closing his night reception from September 4 to 11, then from September 18 to 25, 2021 to focus on vital emergencies. A similar decision was taken between July 21 and August 15 at the Montaigu-Vendée Hospital Center, in Vendée. While its emergency responders were away on vacation, the hospital could not find replacements.
In the Haut-Rhin, the emergency department of the Guebwiller hospital closed its doors between midnight and 7 a.m., throughout the second half of September. Here again, it is impossible to replace the emergency physicians who were numerous to find themselves on sick leave. An absence which was not however linked to the vaccination obligation since 93% of the staff are vaccinated. The shortage of caregivers, coupled with the decrease, is therefore wreaking havoc in an already ailing public hospital. “ It is the culmination of 20 years of austerity policies for the public hospital “, Estimates Philippe Burgaud-Grimard, departmental secretary of the CGT health, quoted by France Bleu Loire Ocean.
Bed closures that have lasted for years
In the Scientific Council investigation published in early October, we learn that 5,800 beds were closed in France in 2020, the year in which healthcare staff were most overworked because of the coronavirus crisis.
If we go back further in time, the finding is even more alarming: 27,000 beds have been removed since 2013. Above all, all those who remain cannot be operational because of understaffing. A situation ” catastrophic »Deplored by the emergency doctor Patrick Pelloux who works at the Samu in Paris. ” I have never known such tension », He adds to Release.
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