Hospital crisis: the nurse blues

The hospital was in crisis and a few weeks before the summer holidays, the emergency room, already short of staff, was on the verge of implosion. Services face a shortage of staff and resources. Many caregivers are nearing completion. Women, many of these health professions, pay a heavy price.

They were on the front line during the Covid-19 crisis. They were applauded and then… forgotten. Nurses, nursing assistants, medical students, nurses: most of them now find themselves in the razor blade, amidst despair, fatigue and unconditional love for their profession.

More than two years after the start of the Covid-19 epidemic, the diagnosis remained the same: the hospital was even more at the peak of the implosion. And its staff, nurses, nursing assistants, medical students, nurses…, are tired.

Loss of motivation

Releases of caregivers are increasing; many students quit. By 2020, of the 392,593 full hospital beds in France, 5,758 will be closed. A trend that has been confirmed for many years. As we have seen, poverty in our health system is intensifying, despite a Ségur promising wage increases (less than enough, according to stakeholders).

The hospital will not move to the next world. Only the lack of motivation and frustration of the caregivers, women in mind. “When I went to my workplace, I knew I was going to leave for a ten -hour boat ride,” explained Karine, an emergency nurse at a Paris hospital. It had already become very solvable, so I was completely broke. »

Increasing workload

Many of them, since the Covid-19 crisis, have found that the workload has become increasingly heavier in the emergency room, in intensive care and in all hospital departments. More administration, less care, less relationships, the impression of counting everything and changing the numbers what a person. From nursing assistants to nurses, including interns and health managers, many feel this is uncomfortable. Among doctors, 56% of women reported burns.

Victims of a disease system, without breathing, they are tired, mentally and physically. Not only that: the nursing profession can also destroy bodies. One in five nurses retire with some degree of disability. The profession suffers from “musculoskeletal disorders, back and shoulder problems …”, deplores a nurse, CGT general secretary of Epernay hospital.

According to a recent study by their pension fund, the life expectancy of nurses is 78 years against 85 years for other French women. The pandemic highlighted structural problems that already existed before the crisis. But this time, the cup is full.

Drop the blouse

So, to treat caregivers, the Le Gouz clinic, located in Louhans (Saône-et-Loire), offers a specific care program. Here, 80% of the patients are women. Nurses but also health executives, nursing assistants, medical students: they have all experienced burns.

“I love my job and have long admitted that what I did was very bad. Because I have to take care of others and not the other way around, ”admits Christine, a health-care manager. But we have to face the facts: caregivers, too, need to be treated if we want the system to continue. Two years after its opening, the Le Gouz clinic is offering a one-day hospital to monitor its patients after their full hospitalization.

Helpers are useless

Also involved during incarceration, midwives also continued their work amid a pandemic in more difficult conditions. Today, 40% of them claim to be tired and professionally exhausted. In recent years, they have repeatedly taken to the streets, to demand more consideration. Despite the small wage increase obtained after the Ségur, the chirp of the maieuticians did not dry up. At the heart of their discontent: the lack of staff that no longer allows them to do their job properly. Will they be heard in the end?