In the spring, between now and summer, at the start of the school year, before All Saints Day… Promised by the government for the winter of 2022-2023a triple epidemic (Flu, Covid-19 and bronchiolitis) hit the hospital hard, and the pediatric conference has been postponed repeatedly since then. This comprehensive consultation was intended to respond to the alarm calls of thousands of pediatric care providers who denounced a situation “untenable” And “Children in daily danger”and call for urgent action.

A year later, a new commitment has just been made to stakeholders by the Minister of Health Aurélien Rousseau, received on Friday November 24th, while the children’s hospital services are under renewed pressure: this meeting should have taken place in January 2024, it will be in the ranks of the Participants reported. “We are a year later and the problems highlighted by this extraordinary crisis are far from resolved.”, notes Professor Christèle Gras-Le Guen, pediatrician at Nantes University Hospital and one of the leaders of these conferences, who welcomes an exchange “completely positive” with the minister.

The preparatory work for the conference was completed a few months ago: 2,000 papers were submitted online, hundreds of experts were interviewed and 300 to 400 suggestions were included in a report “To improve the health of the child” still confidential, presented to the Minister of Health in the summer.

“We didn’t expect much”

Local pressure on hospitals is increasing again. If the winter epidemics continue to be disproportionate to those of the winter of 2022-2023, this is the case for many farms “has entered the difficult part” In recent days we have heard from the ranks of pediatricians, particularly in Ile-de-France, that bronchiolitis continues to be in an ascending phase.

Due to a lack of space in pediatric intensive care units, three transfers of infants from the Ile-de-France region to other regions had to take place in the week of November 20th – two to Amiens, one to Dijon. The regional health department registered a total of six children who had to be moved outside Ile-de-France since mid-October. “Five of these were due to the fact that the supra-regional care made it possible to stay closer to where the families lived.”she specifies.

In the ranks of the professionals mobilized in 2022 as part of the pediatric collective, the tone remains disillusioned. “We didn’t expect much from these conferences and that’s exactly what happened, regrets Mélodie Aubart, neuropediatrician at the Necker-Enfants malades hospital (Assistance publique-Hôpitaux de Paris), who coordinated the open letter to the President of the Republic signed by 10,000 carers. As long as the consequences are not visible to children, nothing will happen. » However, in her opinion, the situation has continued to worsen: “Childcare is in a dismal state. The problem is not bronchiolitis, but the lack of beds everywhere and now all the time, as well as the blatant lack of nursing staff. And it is the children who pay the price. »