The pediatricians of the Vichy hospital center are called upon to lend a hand to their colleagues at the Montluçon hospital, where the medical staff is reduced to a trickle. “We have already gone to provide care at the end of 2021-beginning of 2022. We will probably go back there by the end of the year,” says Morgane Boutry, head of the pediatrics department and the woman-child unit, in Vichy. The problem is not so much going to help put out a fire as knowing what we want to do with the Montluçon service. »
Hiba Trraf, the doctor who rushes on the stretchers to save the pediatric department of Montluçon (Allier)
The establishment of the city on the banks of the Cher provides maternity-neonatology activity, pediatric emergencies and scheduled consultations. “We cannot be both on the emergency front and on the scheduled work front with a single doctor as backup,” continues the Vichy pediatrician. Otherwise, we exhaust him and he no longer wants to help. It is a vicious circle, knowing that the practitioner takes risks. »
5.4 full-time equivalents
The service of the Jacques-Lacarin hospital center had also experienced a difficult period due to a low medical staff, but the situation has improved. He tours with a full crew. “Currently, the service has 5.4 full-time equivalents, plus two other doctors with foreign qualifications. We were much less numerous two years ago. »
In 2017, in Vichy, 2.6 full-time equivalents in pediatrics [09/03/2017]
A start in child psychiatry
This return to normal has enabled the service to develop the consultation of the fifteenth day of the newborn and to offer more scheduled consultations “with shorter delays for the families”.
So help Montluçon “yes”, but not all the way, to hear the Vichy pediatrician well. Especially since a fire broke out elsewhere, in child and juvenile psychiatry where a child psychiatrist left his post at the end of the summer. “It’s going to be complicated again, because we can’t replace him,” breathes the head of the pole.
Estelle Dissay
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