Faced with the second wave, Marseille hospitals are recruiting urgently

A caregiver in Marseille during the coronavirus epidemic -

• The AP-HM is seeking to recruit 200 nurses, including intensive care nurses, to lend a hand to a staff exhausted by the coronavirus epidemic.

• This recruitment is urgent, since the epidemic is constantly gaining ground in Marseille.

• The lack of caregivers in Marseille hospitals has however been a reality for years.

Two hundred people to recruit urgently.

The figure is colossal and yet it is the one given by the Assistance Publique des Hôpitaux de Marseille, a few days ago, during a major communication campaign that Marseille hospitals launched as a call for help.

While caregivers are facing a second wave of the coronavirus epidemic, to the point that Olivier Véran is considering even more drastic measures to contain the pandemic, the AP-HM is in dire need of staff, and in particular of nurses in intensive care.

So far, only half of his posts have been filled.

"In intensive care, we would theoretically need two and a half nurses per patient," explains Karen Inthavong, general coordinator of care at AP-HM.

We have already been able to recruit a hundred nurses very quickly but today, the source has dried up.

During confinement, we could count on the reinforcement of other services.

Today that is no longer possible.

We would like to open beds, transform services, but that requires more staff from us.

And there's no point in opening a service if you can't arm it with people!

Otherwise, we will have to deprogram operations, and that is not our objective.

"

"It's starting to shoot"

"We are sorely lacking in staff," sighs Sabine Valéra, intensive care nurse at the North hospital and president of the federation of intensive care nurses.

The caregivers are super tired from the first wave.

In my department, there is an incredible number of sick leaves, around 20%. When deconfining, I had to catch up on the backlog of operations that had been deprogrammed.

It starts to pull, and we think we need a break.

"

This reality is not new in Marseille, however.

Long before the coronavirus epidemic, in July 2019 as reported by

, the AP-HM was already looking for 200 caregivers, and prancing at the top of the absenteeism rate of French hospitals with no less than 10%.

“This absenteeism did not help us,” sighs Karen Inthavong.

Cure restrictions

“I believe above all that the problem is that the profession is no longer attractive, regrets Sabine Valéra.

We hire at 1,600 euros per month.

It's borderline if the people who collect the trash don't earn more than us.

And then there is the pain!

To be applauded at 8 p.m. ok, but we would have liked perhaps a little more recognition, especially from the State.

"

Before confinement, to obtain significant aid from the State, the AP-HM had resigned itself to granting itself a cure of economy, through the elimination of many beds and a rationalization on all floors.

Also, while Olivier Véran was once again publicly worried about the coronavirus epidemic in Marseille this Thursday, the first deputy mayor of Marseille does not hide his annoyance.

“Instead of distributing the good and the bad, I call on […] the Minister of Health to provide a concrete solution to the abandonment of our public health system, tackles the socialist Benoît Payan in a press release.

Since the first wave of Covid-19, we are asking the State to invest one billion euros for the AP-HM;

this is the real answer expected by caregivers, patients and residents of our city.

"

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• Recruitment

• epidemic

• Coronavirus

• Marseilles

• Hospital