Closing of beds, lack of personnel, precarious contracts … In a video posted on social networks, on May 15, the caretakers of the pediatric and neonatal resuscitation service of the Toulouse University Hospital expressed their discomfort in front of the work overload in their unit.
Nurses, child care workers, attendees, nursing attendees and doctors have warned their superiors about the degradation of their conditions since 2024, but in vain.
“We hope that, according to this movement, management will bring us the medium we ask (…) we just want to work properly, with serenity,” explains a child care assistant in BFMTV.
In this video, seen more than 22,000 times on Instagram, they request “human, safe and stable working conditions” to offer “quality support” to their young patients.
“Our service is like an Excel table”
Toulouse Chu caregivers report a service under pressure perceived as “an Excel Table” with “occupation rate” that will be achieved at the expense of the welfare of the personnel and patients.
“We alert him, not by choice, but out of necessity, because we refuse to support a system that mistreats caregivers and endangers children,” they say in the video.
In 2024, the Hospital of the University of Toulouse was the best in France according to the LE Point newspaper list. The pediatric and neonatal resuscitation service, composed of 22 beds, represents more than 1,200 children (newborns and adolescents) hospitalized every year.
“Today, sometimes we are making numerous tickets during the nights, which leads us to go beyond the quota of an assistant for four children,” says Adélaïde Courrèges, a child care assistant, with BFMTV,
A support wave
Before the disorder of nursing staff, the inhabitants of the city say they are united. “We need this hospital. Even the people who come from the surrounding cities such as Montauban or Moissac, and who have their own hospitals come here. Therefore, I understand that they need more reinforcements and more support. It is unacceptable that they do not have them,” bothers a passenger in the BFMTV microphone.
On Instagram, the multiplicated supports after the video publication. “You are not alone, we are there, by your side, so that your work is respected and that can be exercised in good condition,” wrote the mother of an old patient.
“You are the latest walls and the last hope of the parents,” said a former patient with care ten years ago at the Children’s Hospital. “Without all of you, you would not be present today.”
If negotiations between management and staff must continue on Monday, the medical team has presented a strike warning. The mobilization could take place on Wednesday, May 21.
Source: BFM TV
