At the Melun hospital center, the intensive care unit is short of nurses while admissions of Covid-19 patients are increasing. Faced with the lack of resources and the weariness of the teams, the question of prioritizing vaccinated patients arises.
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In the intensive care unit of the Melun hospital center, one should not trust the impression of calm that dominates: almost half of the beds are occupied by Covid patients. The number has skyrocketed in three weeks and itwenty nurses are missing. Despite the overtime, the intensive care unit therefore does not have the means to expand. This would be done to the detriment of other patients, explains Mérane Mouchi, the head of the department: “Taking some of the caregivers to close medicine or surgery beds and put them in intensive care would not have the capacity to accommodate other patients who arrive in the emergency room. And that, we decided not to do. “.
The criteria for admission to intensive care may become more stringent, according to the intensive care health executive of the establishment, Magalie Lenotre. “At some point, perhaps the ethical question of making a choice between people who have been vaccinated and those who have chosen not to be vaccinated may arise. And in which case, who do we take in intensive care? hope that it will not come to that “.
The departure of experienced nurses dates back to the start of the Covid-19 crisis, according to Nisrine Masse, nurse at Melun hospital for four years: “We end up with a lot of nurses or nursing assistants who are new graduates coming out of school, otherwise they are people who have had to change region or establishment “.
“Since the first wave of Covid, I believe that more than half of the paramedics have left their posts to go elsewhere or to change jobs.”
Nisrine Masse, nurseto franceinfo
The mindset of caregivers has also changed. “I don’t know if there was heroism initially but in any case there was maybe the novelty side which starts to fade so there is a certain form of fatalism and weariness”, says Gaël Michaud, intensive care physician. Of the fifteen patients currently in intensive care, thirteen are not vaccinated. And a quarter of them have fake health passes.
Report by Etienne Monin at Melun hospital (Seine-et-Marne)
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