The start of the new school year promises to be eventful for hospitals and healthcare staff. Faced with the ever-increasing rebound in Covid-19 infections, shortages in stocks of protective equipment and medicines are feared.
- Stocks of gloves raise fears of a shortage.
- Several hospitals are on strike and are demanding more resources.
- The high heat coupled with the coronavirus did not give hospitals any respite this summer.
The end of the summer holidays and the resumption of the epidemic raise fears of a sports resumption for the nursing staff. “Normalization has made us return to the world before and more degradedsummarizes Christophe Prudhomme, doctor at the Avicennes hospital in Bobigny and spokesperson for the association of emergency physicians in France, at the HuffPost. This summer was difficult, we had this strong period of heat which caused a small increase in activity. However, any increase puts the hospital under tension because we are constantly on the razor’s edge..”
The stocks of gloves in question
Stocks of masks, gloves and medicines raise fears of a shortage for nursing staff. “We know that there are small gapsbegins Anne Claire Rafleugeot, from the Inter-Urgences collective. We don’t know the drug stocks, but we have concerns since we were very uncertain about the end of the epidemic..” If the first wave reported a significant lack of masks, it is the gloves that are likely to be missing this time. “New shortages are emerging, there is particular tension on gloves, largely because the raw material comes from China”, explains Christophe Prudhomme.
A prospect of shortage that recalls the bad memories of the first wave. “What was hardest during the first wave was that we not only had to fight the epidemic, but also the lack. The lack of equipment, the lack of masks, the lack of tests…sighs Thierry Amouroux of the national union of nursing professionals. If we are faced with a second wave as large as the first, we will quickly be helpless. And we don’t want to find ourselves after a few days working again with garbage bags on our backs.”
Tension and exhaustion
Hospitals have already displayed their fed up with the prospect of a return to school under high tension. On the gates of the Laval hospital, a banner displays the evils of public hospitals: “Hospital under tension, exhausted staff, population in danger, death of the hospital service.” Since August 10, nurses and nursing assistants from the service responsible for welcoming coronavirus patients have been on an indefinite strike and are demanding more resources in a department, Mayenne, which crossed the epidemic alert threshold this summer. In Saint-Brieuc, emergency doctors went on strike until September 15.
The start of the new school year promises to be delicate, especially since in addition to the coronavirus, the high temperatures have given hospitals a lot of work. “Normalization has made us return to the world before and more degradedclearly sums up Christophe Prudhomme. This summer was difficult, we had this strong period of heat which caused a small increase in activity. However, any increase puts the hospital under tension because we are constantly on the razor’s edge..” The number of available beds is lower than in January, adding to the strain on hospital staff. “The general state of mind is exhaustion and a drop in motivation knowing that today the most probable hypothesis is that we will have to live with this virus for two or three years with periods of increase in activity which will place the hospital in a crisis situation”, also concludes Christophe Prudhomme.
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