The situation is still just as “worrying” in hospitals, as Health Minister François Braun acknowledged on Wednesday November 2. Pediatric emergency services are plunged into a crisis linked to unsatisfactory working conditions and a lack of staff. For the past few weeks, they have been dealing with an early and “worrying” outbreak of bronchiolitis, a respiratory disease that affects babies and sometimes leads them to hospital.
In order to deal with the problems of the hospital sector, and in particular pediatric services, François Braun announced this Wednesday new measures “of the order of 400 million euros” during a press conference. His cabinet then clarified that this amount would include the envelope of 150 million euros promised last October by the government to support “the services in tension” of the hospital. The Minister of Health announced in particular the doubling of the remuneration of night hours for “all hospital staff” until March 31, in order to “recognize the commitment of professionals” and “the hardship of the night work”.
In addition, all caregivers working in critical care services will be able to benefit from the “critical care bonus” put in place during Covid-19. Some health professionals were excluded, such as childcare workers. The granting of this bonus to these pediatric service professionals was one of the demands made by the heads of pediatric intensive care units. François Braun also acted on the extension of the measures put in place this summer as part of the “flash mission”, such as aid for city medicine and medical regulation.
Representatives of the Pediatrics Collective at the Elysée Palace
These solutions, which aim “to recognize the unfailing investment of our hospital professionals”, will be discussed again within the framework of the work carried out by the National Council for Refoundation launched in early October by the government. The National Pediatrics Conference scheduled for spring 2023 should allow the development of the sector’s roadmap for the years to come, explained the Minister.
On October 22, more than 7,000 pediatric caregivers sent an open letter to Emmanuel Macron to alert him to the saturation of hospital services linked to the bronchiolitis epidemic but also to the lack of resources and personnel.
Before the announcement of the Minister of Health, representatives of the Collectif Pédiatrie went this Wednesday morning in a delegation to the Elysée Palace to denounce the crisis that the pediatric hospital services have been going through for a few weeks. Five of them were received by his office, they said. “We have the impression of having been listened to”, declared to AFP Dr. Mélodie Aubart neuropediatrician at the Necker-Enfants Malades hospital, in Paris, member of this delegation, after this meeting with an adviser to the president of the Republic.
“Today, dozens of children are hospitalized in emergency boxes, are transferred several hundred kilometers from their homes, caregivers come home every day feeling like they have done their job badly”, she had explained before this interview. “Today we are at 31 children transported out of the Ile-de-France region,” François Braun said on Tuesday.