A day to take care of themselves so that they continue to take care of others. This is the purpose of its sailing trips to which the “Guérir en mer” association regularly invites medical personnel off the coast of Marseille. That day, hospital nurses embarked on a tour of the Frioul islands.
According to them, the Covid-19 crisis has only brought to light the already existing problems of our health system, and in particular the deterioration for years of their working conditions. “We have a feeling of helplessness in the face of the institution which always asks us for more, more protocols, more papers, with resources that are not increasing and which, on the contrary, are constantly decreasing. So it can feel like a vise actually“, testifies Cécile Gleize, nurse and navigator for a day.
Many caregivers share this observation. The objective of these outings at sea is to preserve them, protect them from burnout and encourage them to say that they are not well: “Not going well is a bit of a failure. We invite them to say: yes, I’m not well, but if I’m not well, it’s not necessarily because of me, it’s because of the system in which I work, they don’t put me in the right conditions to do my job properly, but I like my job. And we tell them: “you have the right not to be well, and you have the right to be taken care of”“, explains Marine Crest-Guilluy, the president of the association “Guérir at sea”.
At the beginning of the association, there were about ten participants; this summer, 350 caregivers benefited from the benefits of sailing. “Me, I feel good when I’m on a boat in fact, it clears my head, it makes me forget the difficult daily life. Suddenly, that’s freedom, absolute well-being“, explains Béatrice Bouttier, nurse in a hospital.
Faced with positive feedback, but also with enormous needs, the Marseille association has grown on the Atlantic coast with the opening of two branches in Lorient in Morbihan and in Sables-d’Olonne in Vendée.