Saturated pediatric emergencies: caregivers urge Emmanuel Macron to act
In France, pediatric departments in hospitals are saturated, particularly in Île-de-France.
This leads to degraded care, the transfer of patients or even sometimes their sending home for lack of space to accommodate them.
Faced with the emergency, 4,000 pediatricians sign a letter to President Emmanuel Macron calling on him to act.
Getty Images/Owen Franken
Text by: RFI Follow
1 min
In France, pediatric departments in hospitals are saturated, particularly in Île-de-France.
Faced with the emergency, 4,000 pediatricians sign a letter to President Emmanuel Macron calling on him to act.
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With the arrival of autumn and the first frosts in France, cases of bronchiolitis are increasing.
A usual and predictable epidemic.
However, this year, even more than usual, the influx of sick children saturates pediatric hospitals which were already operating under capacity.
Twenty percent of hospital beds are indeed closed, operating theaters are shut down and Samu teams are immobilized.
As a result, young children in serious condition had to be transferred far from their homes.
Some were even sent home without treatment.
And operations have been deprogrammed.
“
We are forced to sort our patients
”, summarize the pediatricians in a letter sent to Emmanuel Macron, and this “
endangers the children
” they explain while denouncing “
irresponsible political inaction
”.
According to the signatories of the letter, if the hospitals are idling and are overwhelmed, it is because of the
lack of medical and paramedical personnel
.
Exhaustion, lack of recognition and funding, unsuitable policy... More and more of them are leaving their posts without being replaced.
In response to the missive from pediatricians, the government admitted to being "
aware of the problem
" through the voice of the Minister Delegate for Health, Agnès Firmin Le Bodo.
It's not a new problem.
Two years ago,
the Ségur de la Santé
had devoted more than 8 billion euros to the revaluation of caregivers
(
With
AFP)
►
To read also: Hospital crisis in France: "working conditions are catastrophic"
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