What will become of the “heroes” in the next world?

By Stéphane Gaudry, professor of intensive resuscitation medicine in the Avicenne (Bobigny) and Jean Verdier (Bondy) hospitals 

Publicity

This column - as well as other points of view of experts, thinkers, artists or sportsmen - is published within the framework of special days “  After the Covid-19, a new world?  », On May 8, 9 and 10, on RFI's radio and digital antennas.

The health crisis that struck us at the beginning of March has already turned the lives of caregivers in the intensive care units and all of the hospital staff. Only the future will tell us whether these profound changes will be lasting.

From the first days of the crisis, we saw that extraordinary solidarity between caregivers (nurses, caregivers, doctors) was being born. This spirit of solidarity has spread far beyond the caregivers, also including technical staff, secretaries, cleaning staff and hospital security guards to whom we must pay tribute. The feeling of being driven by a real collective mission has closed ranks and has made it possible to achieve many exploits, young and old. I deeply hope that this solidarity and this team spirit will continue beyond the Covid-19 period, the end of which we unfortunately do not yet know.

It will also be necessary after this crisis to recognize that hospital doctors and healthcare executives were the pillars of the response to this first wave. For many years, they had too often been left out of hospital decision-making. Despite the posting, the hospital administration had taken an increasingly important place since this famous HPST law (Hospital, Patients, Health and Territories of July 2009) and the term "efficiency" (which implies "economy") had become the center of speech. The many demonstrations in 2019 to defend the public hospital had also exposed the tensions between caregivers and directors of public hospital groups. Let us remember the collective resignations of department heads. A lesson to be learned from this beginning of the crisis will be that the caregivers were on the front line including in work and organizational decisions. They will have shown a great capacity for adaptation and creativity to cope with the massive influx of patients. This should not be forgotten when we rethink the organization of the hospital and it will obviously be necessary to rebalance the relationship between administrative "power" and medical "power".

Caregivers have often been compared to heroes in recent weeks. Beyond the gratifying nature, this comparison poses a problem. Indeed, what will these heroes do in the next world? Will nurses always be paid 1.3 times the minimum wage in our country? Will they still have to live more than an hour from their work, because their salary does not allow them to stay near the hospital where they gave so much? In this famous world after, the revalorization of the salaries of all the hospital staff and in the first place of the caregivers and nurses is essential.

A hero is not in the habit of complaining about his situation; he / she returns anonymously after having accomplished his mission without asking anything. Caregivers and those who participate in the operation and maintenance of the hospital do not ask to be heroes but just that their work is considered and therefore paid at its fair value. It should not be forgotten.

Our selection on the coronavirus

• Listen to our daily chronicle  Coronavirus info

• The practical questions  :
→  What is known about the mode of contagion
→  disparities and inequalities in coronaviruses: what to remember
→  What outcomes for clinical trials?
→  A vaccine, the only solution to stem the pandemic?
→  How to make a mask and use it well

• Our series  : "  The response, country by country  "

• Each evening, find the State of the world and Africa facing the pandemic

• See also the files of RFI Savoirs on the Covid-19:
→  Birth of a pandemic
→  Everyday life put to the test
→  The history of epidemics
→  Science facing the Covid-19
→  The geopolitical consequences

Newsletter With the Daily Newsletter, find the headlines directly in your mailbox

Follow all international news by downloading the RFI application

• After Covid-19 to a new world?
• Coronavirus
• Confinement