What solutions to eliminate the shortage of caregivers in the hospital?

• The Minister of Health Olivier Véran spoke on Wednesday in

  Liberation

  on the increase in absenteeism and vaccination posts in public hospitals

• While the French Hospital Federation reports an absenteeism rate of 10% and 2 to 5% of vaccination posts, Olivier Véran refutes the figure of 20% of closed beds

• Rise in wages, abolition of the number clausus, career prospects ...

  20 Minutes

  goes around solutions to end the particularly sensitive shortage among nurses

The Covid-19 epidemic has hurt the public hospital, and not just the sick.

Under intense pressure, forced to accumulate overtime, many caregivers are reaching the end of their commitment to patients.

On Twitter, messages from doctors or nurses announcing their resignation are widely relayed.

With this explosive absenteeism, the situation worsens in the hospital, where beds have to be closed due to lack of caregivers.

takes stock.

What are the figures for the shortage of caregivers at the public hospital?

On October 20, the Hospital Federation of France reported "an absenteeism rate of around 10%" and "2 to 5% of vacant nursing posts" in hospitals and medico-social establishments. public. It is much more than usual. Olivier Véran, in an interview with

Wednesday, acknowledged a one-third increase in vacant positions among paramedics compared to the situation before the Covid-19.

The most affected post is that of nurse.

Direct consequence of this lack of caregivers, the closure of 20% of beds according to the Scientific Council, a finding denied by Olivier Véran.

The minister puts forward the figure of 5% of closed beds, according to a survey carried out with 16 CHUs.

The threat of a long-term shortage of caregivers is real.

In October 2020, the National Order of Nurses revealed in a large consultation that 4 out of 10 nurses indicated that they did not know if they would remain in the profession within five years.

How did we get there and is there a short term solution?

One of the elements is of course the deterioration of working conditions with the Covid-19 epidemic. "It is a general crisis in this profession, with a lasting fed-up and burn-out," Jean-Paul Ortiz, president of the Confederation of French medical unions, told 20 Minutes. "There has always been a lack of doctors in all departments, but before, there was no shortage of nurses," he explains. However, it is impossible to compensate for resignations immediately, since there is no unemployment in the health sector: each student at the end of his study is inserted.

But precisely, the problem is deeper.

Thus, a thousand nursing students resigned during their training between 2018 and 2021. A figure linked, according to the National Federation of Nursing Students, to a "more mobilization more" during the Covid epidemic, where students already had to fill vacant positions, but also the gap between the reality of the profession and their expectations.

Keeping students is therefore a major issue, to which the salary increase operated by the Ségur de la Santé does not fully respond.

And while working conditions may improve with the end of the Covid-19 epidemic, they remain difficult for many.

Reforming the nursing profession, the long-term solution?

The first solution, in the medium term, would therefore be to increase the number of students. “We need to train more to attract more”, sums up Jean-Paul Ortiz. On RMC, the socialist presidential candidate Anne Hidalgo has positioned herself to "completely blow up the numerus clausus" imposed after the first year of medicine. Among nursing students, this device does not exist but the sector remains selective with limited places in IFSI and recruitment on file. But even once in the course ...

"Today, you are graduating from school, you are a night nurse or in an operating theater at 22, in 20 or 30 years you will be doing the same job", notes Jean-Paul Ortiz. The possibilities of career development, almost nil, are one of the major obstacles to staying in the profession. To remedy this, the National Order of Nurses wishes to broaden the field of competence of professionals and pleads for more autonomy in the field of prescription and prevention. A way, according to them, to respond to three major challenges of the French health system: the overall aging of the population, which is leading to an increase in chronic diseases, and medical deserts. If this would not ensure, without increasing the number of students, at the public hospital to have enough nursing staff,but at least to ensure that nurses stay and get involved in their profession.

Health

Shortage of caregivers: Olivier Véran recognizes a "complicated" situation, but disputes 20% of closed beds

Health

Public hospital: 20% of beds are currently closed for lack of staff

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• Olivier Véran

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