The fire goes out in pediatrics. A seasonal epidemic of bronchiolitis, currently raging among infants under two years of age, has created a health crisis in hospital wards dedicated to child health. Condemning a situation which “Everywhere in France continues to deteriorate.” and: “Dangerous patients” A delegation of doctors planned to go to the Elysee on Wednesday to ask Emmanuel Macron to take measures. “Quick, strong and perennial”.
On October 21, the first open letter was sent to the head of the country. Health Minister François Browne responded two days later by releasing a €150m envelope (to be cut with other services under strain), the launch of white plans for paediatrics in the spring and support from the organisation.
Critical situation in Ile de France
“The goal is to reorganize the spheres of children’s health.” said the minister on Tuesday. But these suggestions are appreciated “insufficient” By the Pediatric Collective, whose letter was signed by 7,000 hospital and private carers, as well as by all pediatric societies and thirty patient associations. Some services, such as Marseille’s La Timon Children’s Emergency, are also on strike to denounce their chronic understaffing.
“The child health system has been seriously and long neglected, comments Christel Grasse-Le Guin, President of the French Society of Pediatrics and Head of Service at the University Hospital of Nantes. Added to this this year is an acute shortage of critical care beds, many of which are closed due to a lack of nurses and orderlies. The exhausted state of hospital pediatrics is such that it can no longer absorb the minimal increase in activity.
Bronchiolitis, an illness caused by the respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), affects about a third of children under two years of age each year and most commonly causes coughing and wheezing. In the most fragile children, it can cause respiratory distress requiring assisted ventilation and hospital monitoring. According to Public Health France’s latest weekly bulletin (data from October 17 to 23), nearly 4,500 infants were seen in the emergency room for bronchiolitis in one week, of which 1,500 were hospitalized, a 40% increase over activity. . last week.
This flow of patients leads to overcrowding of the emergency services, which are turned to by parents who have not found advice in the city and are often very worried. It also causes saturation of many general pediatric and critical care services, forcing young patients to be transferred to other more or less distant hospitals. These medical evacuations involve children with serious respiratory distress in some cases. For example, in Ile-de-France, where the situation is most critical, 31 infants have been transferred to intensive care units in other regions since the beginning of the epidemic.
“Those transfers are not insignificant for those patients whose health condition, by definition, is very unstable.– emphasizes Stephane Dauger, the head of the pediatric resuscitation department of the Robert-Debreux Hospital in Paris. And imagine the complications this creates for parents. Moreover, it mobilizes highly specialized teams for hours.”
This shortage of hospital beds is exacerbating congestion in the emergency room, where children are kept in consultation boxes for hours waiting for a bed to become available. “In this case, we have to initiate care and provide monitoring in the emergency room, which leads to degraded care for these patients.laments Jeremy Do Cao, a pediatrician at the Antoine-Béclair Hospital (AP-HP) in Clamar. And that increases the wait for other children who need urgent care.” Its service, which has closed ten beds due to lack of nurses, has already organized 32 transfers of children to general pediatrics in the Paris region, as well as in Drey, Amiens and Chartres.
For the signatories of the open letter, it’s time to send it “strong signal” so that services dedicated to children regain their appeal to health staff. “It is not only a financial problem.emphasizes Stefan Dauger. We want our uniqueness to be recognized and our profession to regain its meaning through the restoration of acceptable working conditions.” The doctors remind that other epidemics, such as the flu, are waiting for the healthcare system this winter. But, according to them, it happened. “no point of return”.
Source: Le Figaro
