“The hospital is in big trouble, everyone knows that.” Traveling this Tuesday to the Necker hospital in Paris, the Minister of Health, François Braun, made a new negative diagnosis of the hospital situation in France while cases of bronchiolitis are increasing throughout the country. This disease, which particularly affects young children, puts even more pressure on pediatric services, which already face glaring staff shortages.
The white plan and actions.
This influx has direct consequences. This Monday, the Nouvelle-Aquitaine Regional Health Agency, where 5% of beds are closed due to lack of staff, announced the implementation of level 2 of the white plan in all Gironde establishments. A decision that follows “the context of difficulties and prolonged tensions in various emergency services of the department, which now affect the regulation activities SMUR and SAMU-Center 15”, justifies the Regional Health Agency.
Last week, two Norman establishments, those in Rouen and Le Havre, had also activated this same device. Adult and pediatric emergencies face particularly sustained activity that generates very significant difficulties in finding places for hospitalization,” explained the CHU on its Facebook page, which also insisted that the waiting time for patients is currently “very long for non-serious care”.
Another example of this tension is the interregional movements of children, in particular in Île-de-France, a region that suffers the most important peak of bronchiolitis, but whose hospitals are not under the white plan. This Tuesday, François Braun confirmed that 31 of them had been transported to other establishments to date.
Other establishments ask for the decongestion of their service, such as the University Hospital of Grenoble where the emergency personnel have presented a call for an indefinite strike starting Tuesday. On Wednesday, several thousand pediatric carers will march towards the Elysee to show their discontent.
“Substantial Help”
In response to this hospital crisis, François Braun had announced this Sunday “an action plan of 150 million euros” for hospital services “in tension”, starting with pediatrics, within the framework of the trials that should take place next spring . Today, the minister insisted again on the economic aid that she wishes to allocate to the Government.
“The Government is going to give substantial help,” he said, before recalling that this Wednesday he must meet “with all the pediatric professionals to work with them on this reform of the hospital as a whole. Children’s sectors. My mission and my will is to rebuild this hospital on other foundations.
Questioned by BFMTV after these new announcements, Andrés Werner, president of the AFPA (French Association of Ambulatory Pediatrics) believes that “it is difficult to be fast” in such a situation and doubts the government’s announcements. “The problem is not pecuniary, but there is a lack of interest in comprehensive child care policies,” he believes.
“We have to encourage people to come back to the hospital, to want to do their job as a pediatrician. We are currently preventing them from working properly, we are breaking their desire to do the work they have chosen, ”he concludes. , insisting on administrative work that occupies “50% of working time”.
Source: BFM TV
