Thibaud Hue, edited by Ophelie Artaud
While the summer season is in full swing, in Fréjus, in the Var, the emergency rooms of the public hospital are completely overwhelmed. A situation in particular due to the closure of night emergencies at the Draguignan hospital, but which has repercussions on the reception of patients, for whom the wait is often very long.
The crisis is not over in the emergency services. Understaffed, too much demand… The wait can be very long for patients. A visible situation in Fréjus, in the Var, where the emergency room of the city’s public hospital is completely submerged and its nursing staff are out of breath.
“If we let go, who will people get?”
Patient after patient, treatments follow one another at a hellish pace. “We go from 150 to 250 people who consult the emergency room”, explains doctor Maxime Perrier, monitoring the entries on his computer. Some days the line even reaches the sidewalk. The massive influx of tourists and the lack of medical personnel are not the only causes. “The blockage comes from the closure of other structures, in our case, it is the Draguignan hospital which, for lack of doctors, had to reduce its hours and is closed at night. This increases our attendance at night compared to as usual”, adds the doctor. “Not to mention the lack of hospital beds.”
Precisely, five patients are waiting for a place in the hospital, installed on beds, in the corridor of the service. A situation that can go on forever. “Recently, someone waited 3 days for a place in the emergency room awaiting hospitalization. So far today, the record is one day and 11 hours.”
An unbearable situation for the nursing staff, on the verge of rupture. “We love our work, but the goal is not to be a slave to the hospital either and to get to the point of no longer loving the job. Because if we let go, who will people get?”, regrets Dr. Christina Egea. And some are even already thinking of leaving the hospital to retrain, if the working conditions do not change.