Paris hospitals transferring children to lessen strain of bronchiolitis, staff shortages

Hospitals in and around Paris have started transferring children to paediatric intensive care units in other hospitals to alleviate overcrowding due to an epidemic of bronchiolitis that is putting strain on already short-staffed paediatric services. The health minister said he will meet with healthcare workers on Wednesday to address what has been called a crisis in France's paediatric healthcare sector.

A nurse protesting at the Robert Debre children's hospital in Paris in June 2020, when medical staff were already raising the alarm about the degradation of work conditions. Today, paediatric emergency services have reduced capacities to treat seasonal epidemics, like bronchiolitis, as they struggle to recruit nurses. © Francois Mori/AP

Some 30 children have been transferred to hospitals outside of the Paris region, as emergency services in the capital are overwhelmed by a convergence of a large number of bronchiolitis cases needing hospitalisation, and a staffing shortage in paediatric services.

Doctors are used to treating bronchiolitis, a common, contagious chest infection that mostly affects babies. But this year, the infection has reached epidemic proportions, with over a quarter of children under the age of two needing to be hospitalised for two to four days due to trouble breathing.

The Paris regional health agency declared a bronchiolitis epidemic on 3 October, and since then it says there has been a “stark increase of visits to children’s emergency services over the last three weeks”.

The French public health authority said last week that nearly the entire country is seeing epidemic levels of the illness.

The bronchiolitis epidemic coincides with staffing shortages in the health sector, and the Paris area regional health agency said there are fewer paediatric emergency beds open than there were in 2021.

• France grapples with staff shortages in hospital emergency rooms

On Tuesday, Health minister François Braun said he would meet with paediatric healthcare workers to address what they say are poor work conditions, notably for nurses, which also make it difficult to recruit.

Earlier in October, a group of 7,000 paediatric healthcare workers signed an open letter to French President Emmanuel Macron decrying work conditions and their inability to properly care for patients, blaming it on “irresponsible political inaction”

Braun responded with a 150 million euro “immediate action plan” and a promise to hold a concertation on paediatric care in the spring.

The collective at the origin of the letter said what was being offered was not enough to address structural issues in the healthcare sector. They are calling for bonuses for nurses who specialise in treating children, who have specific skills and are difficult to replace.

The collective had been planning to gather at the Eylsee palace Wednesday to attempt to personally deliver a letter to Macron underlying the urgency of the situation.

(with wires)