“In the hospital, I give everything to my patients”

In your book, you denounce an increasingly untenable situation in the public hospital.

Tell us.

In 2021, then emergency head of the Laval hospital (Mayenne), I got on strike to protest against the lack of workforce and means. This gesture had revived a national movement. At the time, our service was regularly closing its doors overnight. We feared that these closures are gaining momentum. Today, we are there: in Laval, emergencies are now closed on Wednesdays and Saturdays during the day, as well as five to six nights per week. These closures are common in public hospitals. Access to care deteriorates everywhere.

Why are emergencies found on the front line?

Because here, as in most French territory, emergencies have become the gateway to the hospital. Doctors are overwhelmed; Patients who arrive in consultation are in more serious states than before and require to be hospitalized. And as they did not find an appointment to carry out their exams in town, for lack of availability, they turn to us.

Why do these closures revolt you so much?

If people come to the emergency room, it is because they have no other recourse, and not “for nothing”, as the public authorities often claim. To say this is very guilty for people. The patients who arise for a serious motif only form a small part. Those whose management is very delicate are the patients who must remain in the emergency room until a hospitalization bed is found to accommodate them. The problem is the lack of beds and staff, not engorgement, which is the consequence of a degraded care system. We must stop saying that the patients “engorge” the emergencies!

How do you perceive this daily tension?

Last week, I couldn’t go home after my guard because there was no doctor to take over. So I did a twenty-four hour guard, alone, in regulation (as a doctor of 15 – Number of medical emergencies – which diagnoses the severity of patients to orient their management editor’s note), Which is not legal. But that’s not all: I did this guard without a doctor at the emergency medical team (SMUR)! In other words, I could only send to a patient in vital emergency that a team with an ambulancer and a nurse. They are great, but sometimes it’s not enough … and triggering a team outside the department would have required an expectation of at least an hour for the person. At night, there was only one emergency service opened on the three hospitals in the department. You have to imagine myself: for twenty-four hours, I have a reception helmet of calls on the ears. I go to the toilet with it, I eat with it, I take my sleep breaks with … the calls follow one another at a frantic pace in “automatic storage”.

And yet, you really like this hospital and your profession …

Yes, but we no longer have the means to exercise it properly. It is the patients who first pay the costs. I dream of a hospital where we would have the means to put people back to the center of care. Our priority is them.

Has this attention to others have always been essential to you?

My parents called me “Mother Teresa”! At school, I gave everything I had: my things, my pencils … I have always been happy to please.

I couldn’t bear injustice. When you have received great confidence from your parents, Giving is very easy. Mine sent us values ​​of openness, attention to others, respect … My mother said: “When you have something, you share! There was always an additional plate at the table for those who wanted. It’s still like that with me today. My mother drew these principles from a deep Christian faith. I remember her, mowing the lawn on a small tractor with her rosary on her lap! Faith occupied his daily life. I pray from time to time, but I want this dimension to remain intimate and personal. Healing is for me a natural extension of these values.

So be a doctor a vocation?

In fact, I first wanted to be a veterinarian. I felt very good with animals. One day, when I was doing an internship during my vacation, a child arrived and I naturally got up. He jumped in my arms. His very moved mother explained to me that he was autistic and that he was usually very afraid of contacts. A few weeks later, I was failed in the first year of veterinary studies. I was delighted! I went to medicine, with the idea of ​​specializing in child psychiatry and writing a memoir on autism. But by discovering the research world and its struggles for power, I understood that it was not at all done for me.

What do you find in the emergency room that is not found elsewhere? We see the patients only stealthily …

That’s what I like! When I am with them, I give everything – too much. Finally … never too much … but too much anyway. And precisely, I can invest myself thoroughly because in the evening, I go home, I know that, even if it is hard, at one point, it will be finished.

During your studies, do you recommend protecting yourself?

We teach medical students to “keep their emotions in their blouse, then leave the blouse in the locker room”. But who can do this? I studied the human sciences and I removed the deep conviction that the relationship is essential in care. I say it and repeat: the best medication is the link that is tied from one human being to another. I lived these medical situations myself where we suffer and where we tell you: “But there is nothing! “I say to the doctors:” Listen to the patients: when someone is in pain, there is never “nothing”. Recently, a mother I announced to the death of her three -month -old baby collapsed in pain by screaming. I sit down next to her, on the ground, and took her in my arms and rocked. It was the least I could do, right?

How do you get out of a difficult guard?

Regulation is a position where death is close to death. And even if it is at the end of the phone line, it’s never easy. Before leaving my guard, I always take the time to chat with my colleagues, then I come back on foot and I find most of my personal life: take time with my four children, cook … I never worked on Wednesdays to preserve time with them. Sometimes my loved ones see me crying when I return (his voice breaks, editor’s note) . I explain to them why we do not save people every time but that it is important to put all your energy into it. I open the window, even when it is cold, I need to find the smells, the caress of the wind, the reassuring presence of the trees … The beauty of what is there, very close to us.