The bronchiolitis epidemic is saturating services that are already out of breath, which must in particular postpone certain treatments and transfer children to hospitals several hundred kilometers away.
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Four thousand pediatric caregivers send an open letter to Emmanuel Macron to denounce the saturation of pediatric hospital services, according to a text made public on Friday October 21, and distributed by The Parisian. Caregivers denounce unsuitable working conditions and care, “a glaring deterioration in the care provided to children” who puts them “daily in danger”.
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After two weeks of winter epidemics, “Hospitalization services are overflowing”alert the signatories. “It is urgent to be able to reopen beds in pediatric wards by stopping the flight of caregivers and by recruiting passionate young people”, also launch caregivers to the attention of the Head of State. In their letter, the caregivers describe and denounce numerous deteriorations in their working conditions: hhospitalizations of children in unsuitable places, remote transfers, postponements of scheduled surgical interventions, or premature discharge from hospital.
The caregivers who signed the letter ask the president in particular to better assess “the heaviness of the care that (them) are responsible for”, to adapt “the ratios of patients per nurse/caregiver pair” or to re-evaluate “salaries and working conditions taking into account the level of study”.
The director general of the Ile-de-France regional health agency (ARS), Amélie Verdier, acknowledged to AFP on Thursday “strong tensions” in pediatric departments in the Ile-de-France region, reinforced by the bronchiolitis epidemic. She called for the “everyone’s responsibility”especially parents, for “Protect yourself against winter epidemics”through barrier gestures and vaccination against Covid “including for children”.