Never seen. At the Orleans regional hospital center, almost all of the emergency caregivers have been on sick leave for almost a week. The hospital, which launched its white plan on Tuesday March 29, only maintains activity with the use of nurses and caregivers from other departments and the “pool” of replacements. This was reduced after a call to the population to request the service only in case of emergencies. “vital”.
According to the count of the SUD-Santé-Socials union communicated on April 3, 79 of the 80 emergency nurses and 35 of the 45 nursing assistants were arrested – including the four health executives –, i.e. 90% of these emergency paramedics, Due to “the state of exhaustion and malaise” which has dominated for months, according to union representatives.
How did we get to this situation? The day “disaster” of Monday March 28 was the ” water drop “, to use the words of the caregivers. In one of the emergency departments, a caregiver found one of his deceased patients on a stretcher. The death of this elderly lady was “expected”we explain in the medical ranks, but the conditions in which it intervenes upset a service already on the verge of explosion. “This is not the first, and it will not be the last death in the emergency room, we know that we are faced with deathrecalls Marine (the first name has been changed), a nurse present that day, who wishes to remain anonymous. But there are deaths that shock more than others, and there, what is shocking is that we can no longer support patients with dignity. »
“We are abusive”
The 25-year-old young woman then takes care of the next sector: she has 23 patients under her care at the time of the handover to the team in the afternoon, at 2 p.m. A disproportionate number that has been coming back more and more often in recent months to the regional hospital center, while the ratio considered normal is one nurse for eight to ten patients. “We are no longer able to assume deaths like thatsums up Marie Lefrançois, her colleague nursing assistant. We realize that there will be misses in these conditions where it overflows everywhere. »
In addition to this death, the saturation is such that the new team which arrives for the afternoon, this Monday, March 28, refuses to take office and triggers a “right of withdrawal” – the fifth since the beginning of the year, according to SUD-Santé-sociaux. A way to ring the alarm bell and force people to find solutions to relieve congestion. In the corridors, stretchers pile up, in many boxes, there are three patients instead of two, even the white plan room, where patients have no privacy, has been reopened for a few days, according to caregivers present.
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