We helplessly watch the dismantling of our health system. The pandemic has brought us to the brink. The last government took us a step forward.
Tired of compulsory overtime and increasingly difficult conditions, nurses are leaving the public network for the private sector. The more they leave the hospital, the more those who remain are exhausted. Operating theaters close for lack of staff. The ministry signs contracts with private clinics. The patients are then partly taken care of in the private sector by the same nurses who were at the public hospital the day before…
Waiting lists are exploding. Unable to work in the hospital, the doctors leave in turn.
Without instructions, we can well recognize that everyone has done their best to survive the last two years. But what the surprise of our elected officials in the face of the shortage of hospital staff at the end of the pandemic? How can such a disconnection from the field reassure us about a new episode of “overhaul” of the network? How to listen without cynicism to all the electoral proposals that promise to settle everything in a jiffy, by dint of privatization? PPP is to undress Pierre To dress Paul?
Pandemic fatigue is everywhere and very real. I went to see a co-worker last week to get an exam report done three months ago. I had postponed my patient’s appointment three times for lack of results. She looked at me with watery eyes. “We’re drowning,” she told me.
That’s kind of the state of mind at the hospital. We sink.
Dismantling is well underway. Before going to vote, let’s ask ourselves if we want to recover a functional public health system by stopping the bleeding of personnel or if we simply want to abandon it…
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