He sounded the alarm at the end of 2019, signaling to his management the "extremely worrying" situation during the holiday season of his chronically overloaded but under-staffed service.
The only thing is, the head of emergency at Bicêtre hospital has the feeling that nothing has changed since.
And discouraged by "the indifference of the administration", Dr Maurice Raphael finally announced his resignation on Monday.
Other doctors seem to be on the verge of following suit ...
"I'm not going to die with the task," confides the one who has been responsible for the service for ten years in the columns of Liberation, and who did not wish to make new comments on Tuesday.
The fact remains that he no longer manages to close his eyes to the stretchers that are never permanently vacant in the corridors or to the recurring lack of doctors, nursing aids and nurses.
"The team is exploding with fatigue"
“Every morning, finding ourselves with at least sixteen patients without a bed to accommodate them is too much,” he whispered to our colleagues.
However, "the management does not understand": "If things go wrong, it is because you are poorly organized.
[…] We are exhausted.
The team is exploding with fatigue.
We have more than ten doctors who have announced their departure.
"
The emergencies at the CHU de Bicêtre are among the busiest in Ile-de-France.
LP / FD
A collective resignation?
This is the “serious hypothesis” that Dr Raphael clearly formulated in his December letter, tired of “undergoing” and paying the “full price” to avoid the “serious event”.
The following month, it is within the walls of this same CHU that fifty hospital officials of Public Assistance (AP-HP) had symbolically ceased to exercise their administrative functions for lack of recruitment and resources.
Emergencies continued to suffer in silence.
"The December schedules were made, a week ago without any doctor"
Except that today the cup is full in this service to 165 daily patients, which a titanic modernization project was supposed to revolutionize in 2014. And if the number of visitors is constantly growing (+ 7% each year for a total of 60,000 visits), the holiday season remains particularly feared.
Especially since the seasonal flu will be added this time the Covid-19 pandemic.
“The December schedules were made a week ago without any doctor, laments Isabelle Bernard in the CGT section of the hospital.
Twenty-nine guards will not be taken in this month alone.
It's huge, and it's unheard of.
"
So "indeed, the future will be quite complicated", predicts Olivier Bruley, nursing assistant of the service and FO delegate, who "largely understands the fed up" and fears the defections of doctors "in cascade".
But according to Isabelle Bernard, adult emergencies are not the only ones affected by the great wave of anger.
"The whole hospital is sinking into the doldrums," says the nurse anesthetist.
And as much to say that the beautiful words of Ségur, it is pipeau!
"
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She explains, for example, that “the mother-baby psychiatric unit is at a standstill” for lack of personnel, and recalls that “pediatric resuscitation has been on strike since mid-July”.
“Despite the four meetings that we had with the management, the full working time of nurses is still not recognized and they have no reinforcement, because nobody shows up on the posts seen as they are remunerated.
"
"Young graduates are cracking"
Result, "we have the beds but not the arms", notes a nurse who works "in twelve hours", paid 2190 euros after ten years of seniority.
“Young graduates come to our department because it is hyperformative, but do not stay because they crack.
And we end up taking risks… ”
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Risks ?
“The texts say that we cannot have more than two children in our care.
But lately, it was rather four, account this professional, visibly affected.
If one of them has a serious problem and we take care of it, there is no one left with the others.
"
Assigned strikers
"Danger", there is also for premature infants she said: "Our doctors spend their time making calls to other establishments to transfer babies that we are not able to take. in charge here although we have a benchmark maternity hospital.
And we know that transport can completely damage the little ones… ”
So "psychologically, it gets hard," stammers the nurse, stifling a sob.
The strikers have an appointment with the management next week.
In the meantime, teams are assigned every day to provide care despite the understaffing.
Contacted, the Public Assistance-Hospitals of Paris did not respond to our questions on Tuesday evening.
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