After a certain hour, please don’t hurt yourself again. Faced with an obvious lack of staff and “an unprecedented crisis”, more and more French hospitals are making the painful decision to close their emergency services at night.
A crisis aggravated by the decision of many temporary workers not to go to the emergency room anymore after the Ministry of Health limited the amount of the guards to 1,390 euros gross per 24 hours, compared to the previous 5,000.
The closure of emergency services has very concrete consequences. In Gassin, in the department of Var, a mother brought her son with an ankle injury. She arrived at the site, unable to see a doctor, or even access the service.
“Emergencies close at 18:30, so we have no right to hurt ourselves afterwards, otherwise they send us elsewhere. It’s a bit special anyway,” he reacts to BFMTV.
call 15
In Mayenne, three hospitals are affected by the ER closure. Although patients are invited to first dial 15, Samu’s number, before potentially being seen, Eric Alban Giroux, director of one of the hospitals in question, recalls the importance of this regulation.
“It is having for the population, permanently, or either in the territory, someone on the phone who tells you what you have and if it requires, or does not require, an emergency visit. That is the important thing, that we respond to the populations, ”she argues.
However, in some cases, the response on the 15th is too late. A patient suffering from respiratory failure tells us about his long minutes on the phone, without obtaining a clear diagnosis or a precise indication.
“I was anxious, worried, I was even about to hang up to go straight to the emergency room because I was really having trouble breathing. I had one eye that was starting to get red, so it was starting to get longer,” she recalls.
This issue of response time is a major problem in several regions, while the government wants to make the 15 a new gateway to care. In Hauts-de-France, there is great concern about the most serious pathologies.
“A patient who has a myocardial infarction and loses 30 minutes to go to Valenciennes is still a significant life risk,” said a nurse.
Ineffective response?
Last June, before the summer season in which visits to the emergency room are more frequent, the Ministry of Health recommended dialing 15, a number that is gradually becoming a “care access service”.
But this strategy is not effective in relieving congestion in emergencies, according to Patrick Pelloux, president of the association of emergency doctors in France. “Telling people to call before going to the ER doesn’t work,” he said.
As for the promise that Emmanuel Macron made last April to unclog all emergency services “by the end of next year”, “it does not last until the end”, according to Patrick Pelloux, who believes that the hospital is going through “a absolutely unprecedented crisis”.
Source: BFM TV
