At the Toulouse children’s hospital, a breathless summer
The activity of pediatric emergencies, at the University Hospital Center (CHU) of Toulouse, increased by 30% compared to last summer. With in particular an influx of patients from other departments where the services are also understaffed. Fears are high for the next few months.
Cycling, trampoline, outdoor games: summer is obviously conducive to accidents among children. The emergency and traumatology services are the first witnesses to this. But this summer “peak” does not alone explain a 30% increase in activity compared to the same period last year in the pediatric emergency room of the Children’s Hospital (University Hospital Center of Toulouse). Last weekend, the service recorded 140 passages on Saturday, 120 on Sunday. “We should be around a hundred passages, it is normally the quietest time of the year”, slips Professor Isabelle Claudet, head of pediatric emergencies and head of the children’s center at the Toulouse University Hospital.
According to her, several factors are difficult to put into its structure, whose influence is regional. “Everywhere, there is a lack of pediatricians and doctors, entire units are fermenting in peripheral hospitals or cannot ensure post-operative monitoring after surgery due to a lack of medical and nursing staff. As a result, many small patients are converging with us, ”breathes the pediatrician.
“My child waited more than 20 hours before being realized”
This strong activity, the parents feel it strongly. With barely measured annoyance, Léa, a resident of Lherm, 30 km south-west of Toulouse, recounts the long hours of waiting endured by her 2.5-year-old son Gabriel. Injured in the finger by the closing of an automatic sliding door, the little boy was carried out more than 24 hours after his arrival at the pediatric emergency room. “The initial treatment went very well. In less than two hours, he had had an x-ray and seen by a doctor and a surgeon, ”explains his mother. She does not admit, then, that it was necessary to wait for room to free up in the surgical block for about twenty hours. “There were other emergencies, okay, but to make a 2-year-old child wait so long without eating or moving is abnormal.”
In the minutes following the accident, Léa had immediately taken her son to the nearest pharmacy to clean the wound and had contacted his attending physician by telephone, who explained to him that he was unable to take points. suture. The nearest clinic does not take care of pediatric emergencies, so she naturally went to the emergency room of the Children’s Hospital in Toulouse. His case is a good illustration of the problem of congestion in the Toulouse establishment.
“30% more activity: we will not last”
“This mother is right not to be happy to have stayed so long in the hospital with her little one, even if she was able to benefit from a room. But, indeed, that day, it was necessary to establish priorities in the operating theaters which received a dozen children for unscheduled surgeries. Currently two out of four blocks are closed due to holidays and lack of staff, ”says Professor Isabelle Claudet, worried about the winter period, the most intense in pediatric emergencies. “In winter, when we have no more space, we may sometimes transfer 12 to 15 children to neighboring hospitals. What will happen if this call for air is no longer possible and if we also receive patients from other centres? “.
The pediatrician hopes that the new Purpan medical care center will open at the start of the school year. Even if this device will allow the care of patients who will not be modified from vital emergencies, everything will not be settled. “It gets stuck in hospital capacities. Finally, we will have to take care of the state of the hospital and not just adult emergencies, ”pleads Professor Isabelle Claudet. “We are not used to hearing paediatricians, they are not the ones who shout the loudest. But pediatric emergencies are among the services most in difficulty. The activity there is terribly high; 30 to 60% more each year is impossible. We are not going to last, the risks that our teams crack are greater. And we are going to do bad medicine, ”warns Professor Isabelle Claudet.