In the emergency room of the Bordeaux University Hospital, patients will be “welcomed by two Civil Protection volunteers” et “a security officer“, explained Gilbert Mouden, nurse anesthetist and representative of the Sud Santé Sociaux staff. This is the only way found by the management to “continue to work and receive patients.“For lack of nursing staff, the public hospital has decided to operate in degraded mode in the evening and at night from this Wednesday at 5 p.m..”We have around 40% of emergency physicians who are leaving or on sick leave due to burnout“, he explained to franceinfo.
franceinfo: How will this degraded mode work?
Gilbert Mouden: He will be tested already for an hour this afternoon. We had a health, safety and working conditions committee (CHSCT) this morning. Degraded mode will be implemented tomorrow [mercredi] from 5 p.m. to 10 p.m. and then from 10 p.m. to 8 a.m. with two graduated operating systems. When you arrive at the adult emergency room of the CHU de Bordeaux, between 5 p.m. and 10 p.m., you will be greeted by two Civil Protection volunteers to whom we wish a lot of courage. They will be accompanied by a security officer because there will be quite tense situations in the emergency room. If they have not had a regulation, if they arrive by their own means on foot or by personal car, they will be put in contact with the 15, the SAMU, to be regulated and to see if they enter the emergency room. From 10 p.m., the system is even more degraded because the doors of adult emergencies will be closed for these people. And they will find an intercom in front of them which will put them in touch with the regulating doctor of 15.
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How did we get here?
We come to this because we have completely exhausted an emergency system. We have been sounding the alarm for more than 5 years. We haven’t heard the warnings from all the doctors, paramedics, nurses or nursing assistants where there is a lack of staff in the work organizations where people are made to work at full capacity on 12-hour call, or even even 24 hours for some doctors. They are brought to exhaustion or departure. And I’ve seen lots of emergency physicians leave because of this degraded functioning. When we haven’t tackled the problem at the root, when there are no additional resource people, we arrive at the breakdown of an operating system.
How long will this degraded mode last?
It is set up with information that will be given to the population. It is intended to last and be evaluated. Today, it is the only weapon that our management has found to maintain the system and that we can continue to work and receive patients. We have about 40% of emergency physicians who are leaving or on sick leave due to burnout.
Pediatric emergencies will operate normally?
The problem is exactly the same in pediatric emergencies. I got feedback on this weekend. There were young children who waited for more than 12 hours because there was only one surgical intern to take care of them. This intern is responsible for pediatric emergencies, he is responsible for children who have to go to the operating room. If he’s in these operating theaters, he’s not in the emergency room. There are suffering children who wait more than 12 hours and this is still the case this weekend. And that is unacceptable. A young intern left his post on Saturday morning, with tears in his eyes, after 24 hours on call.
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