"Exhausted", "disgusted", these caregivers no longer want to be in a Covid unit

Between the exhausted caregivers of the first wave and those who suffer from a lack of recognition, many are not ready to return to the Covid unit in the event of a second wave.

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• Caregivers, nurses, staff or temporary workers: caregivers experienced an unprecedented health crisis and mobilization during the first wave.

• Exposed to the coronavirus, exhausted or excluded from the Covid premium due to their status as interim caregivers, many people no longer wish to work in a Covid unit.

Nurses, doctors, or even nursing assistants: everyone took the first wave head-on.

Caring for patients tirelessly.

Not to mention their hours.

To the detriment of their family life.

Sometimes even without full personal protective equipment.

And, for interim and temporary caregivers, without receiving the Covid premium promised by the Head of State to all caregivers mobilized during this unprecedented health crisis.

So after exhaustion, the ever-present fear of bringing the virus home, and after seeing the coronavirus take away many patients and even colleagues, many caregivers no longer feel the strength to face a second wave. in Covid unit.

Not to mention the feeling of lack of recognition, which came to undermine an already eroded motivation.

"We're just still exhausted"

In the Covid unit where she was mobilized during the first wave, Véronique, a caregiver, "saw too many deaths, patients at the end of their rope and destitute and lost families".

And experienced “a big backlash: I couldn't stand sick people anymore, carry all this sadness, while I was at the end of the line myself.

Many of us are not ready to do it again.

We're just still exhausted ”.

An exhaustion shared by Nathalie, a nursing assistant for thirty years: "I had the Covid-19 at the end of March, and from April 14 I was working in the Covid unit in nursing homes with 12 positive cases, and alone in the unit until at the end of May.

It exhausted me, she says.

So I will not be a volunteer in the event of a second wave ”.

Contaminated by patients before confinement, Marguerite, a nurse in a small convalescent institution, “lived in terror of Covid-19.

We were among the first cases in the region with my colleagues, I thought I was going to die ”.

Although her condition does not require hospitalization, Marguerite was off work for seventeen days.

“I returned to work in the Covid unit.

I was exhausted, I couldn't stand, I wasn't recovering from the illness, but I had to work up to 73 hours a week.

I cried every day, I went to work feeling like vomiting, doing the chores mechanically, as best I could, to try to protect myself.

So the applause at 8 p.m., I found that obscene.

I came out at the end of this period.

Certainly, I had the bonus, but the exhaustion is there.

Today, I sleep badly, I have anxiety attacks, I am thinking of taking antidepressants, I feel that I am breaking down.

I am terrified of having to work in a Covid unit again.

But putting me off work would make me feel very guilty: that's the whole paradox of the profession, we suffer, but we tell ourselves that colleagues will suffer even more if we let go.

I'm at a point where I really want to quit this job ”.

"This time we will take care of our daughter"

Faced with the breaking of the first wave, many caregivers have put their daily life on hold to devote themselves to the many Covid patients.

Her vocation as a caregiver, Daniel, nurse anesthetist, saw her as a couple, with his nurse wife in intensive care, and both left feathers there.

“We had to leave our 3-year-old daughter with her grandparents for the duration of the epidemic peak in our region.

That is to say about eight weeks without seeing her, and during which we have chained the twelve hour guards, day and night.

Although caring for others is our profession, my wife and I agree that this time, in the event of a second wave, we will take care of our daughter and our family as a priority ”.

Ditto for Angélique, interim nursing assistant.

“During the first wave, I worked in a Covid unit, so I separated from my children for a month to protect them”.

But deprived of Covid bonus because as a temporary worker, Angélique assures him, "the second wave will be without me, I will stay with my children".

"I have only one desire: to resign"

Because the lack of recognition and low salaries undermine the motivation of more than one caregiver.

“During the first wave, our service was transformed into a Covid unit, with twenty-five patients,” remembers Sandra, nurse on the medical service.

The workload was so heavy, not counting our hours, that even today, I have the impression of being exhausted and not being able to recover.

I love my job, I've been working for twenty-five years, but I never thought I would experience such a situation one day.

And I find that the recognition is not up to the work done, 183 euros per month of salary increase [announced by the Minister of Health Olivier Véran as part of the Ségur de la santé] for everything we do, it is very little: it does not motivate to start again a second time!

"

“We are still the most poorly paid nurses in Europe,” says Isa, a nurse in the operating theater.

I had to work in Covid intensive care in the spring, we did not have enough equipment to protect ourselves.

Even today, we are rationed in masks and gloves, which are in tension, she describes.

I earn less than 1,850 euros net at 40, including nights and weekends, full time.

The salary increase promised by the Ségur de la Santé is not enough.

The French did not support the nurses, we were even called lazy!

And when I see the behavior of people in the last few weeks, it's like we're being spit on.

So risk his life and that of his relatives for such a miserable salary, no thank you!

I have only one desire: to resign, as some of my colleagues did this summer, and they are finally coming back to life!

"

Some are thus planning to retrain, like Alexandre, a nursing assistant for nine years, mobilized in a Covid unit in nursing homes.

"For a month and a half I sacrificed my family life, I did not see my 8-year-old daughter who was looked after by her grandparents, I was so afraid of infecting her".

Interim, Alexandre is excluded from the Covid bonus system, and has a hard time supporting what he feels as “an injustice and a lack of recognition.

Despite all my sacrifices, I did not see it, so from now on, I will no longer work with positive Covid patients, he decreed.

I have always loved my job, despite the deterioration of our working conditions from year to year, but today I am beginning to be disgusted by this lack of recognition.

I am thinking more and more about retraining, and a lot of interim caregivers are in my case ”.

"I am a good professional but not a pear"

Like Alexandre, no interim caregiver has received the Covid premium.

This is the case with Mina, an angry caregiver.

"I have responded to this health crisis, working as close as possible to this virus, taking care of Covid patients.

But I am not entitled to the Covid bonus because of my status as a temporary worker.

This lack of consideration for me and my profession, it certainly dented my enthusiasm.

I am a good professional but not a pear!

So, in the event of a second wave, I will stay at home, like many of my colleagues ”.

Sarah, an interim nurse in Toulouse, also took care of Covid patients in the spring, and did not receive this Covid premium either.

“Yet we are present daily in a number of services which, without our reinforcements, could not take on the workload.

But we are not entitled to any recognition.

Next time, I will not kill myself, and unfortunately it is the patients who will suffer.

By pulling too much on the rope, the government is killing the nursing world and even more that of temporary workers ”.

However, "I lived the Covid-19 in the same way as my regular colleagues, we spent whole nights together running around, not eating and crying when the nerves gave way, confides Julie, temporary nurse.

I canceled my vacation and scheduled shifts, to deal exclusively with Covid patients in intensive care, because we needed arms.

To be excluded from the premium, I cried with disgust, the lack of consideration that the State has for us, while I have mobilized out of professional conscience and love of people.

I felt used: the state took advantage of me.

So I will not be there in the event of a second wave ”.

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• Ehpad

• Covid 19

• Health

• Coronavirus

• Interim

• Hospital

• epidemic