lack of personnel always leads to too many delays and postponements of operations

In the pediatric department of La Timone, the largest hospital in Marseille (Bouches-du-Rhône), Léo, 4 years old, enters the operating room. A cancerous tumor is eating away at his tibia. The operation is urgent to save his leg. In the waiting room, his mother asks questions because her son could have had surgery sooner. The surgical procedure was postponed three times in a Paris hospital because doctors initially failed to detect the cancer. In Marseille, as elsewhere, every day, operating theaters remain closed due to a lack of staff, which leads to postponements for certain patients.

Anne-Marie Burgos, pediatric health executive, points out a “domino effect” : when requests for temporary workers do not reach management, for financial reasons, it is then necessary “cancel children”. To manage the crisis, three times a week, the department heads of Marseille hospitals meet for a “Tetris” meeting, as they call it. The principle: to fit the maximum number of patients into a minimum number of rooms, since a third of the blocks are closed.

The problem is the same for all hospitals. To operate on time, caregivers must be recruited. At the North hospital in Marseille, since Covid, 30% of the operating room nurses have returned their coats. And in the urology and transplantation department, block access slots have decreased by 20% over the past two years. “I did seven months of dialysis”testifies a patient still waiting for a kidney transplant, due to lack of space.

“About fifteen years ago, governments encouraged hospitals to take on debt”denounces Jean-Luc Jouve, head of the orthopedic surgery department. “At public assistance, we carry a debt of 700 million euros with interest.”