C2DS, the Primum Non Nocere® agency and BVM communication work with a thousand health and medical-social establishments. From April 17 to 27, the views of 2,247 healthcare professionals were gathered.
The questionnaire sought to highlight the strengths of the healthcare system that have enabled it to withstand this pandemic crisis, rather than pointing to already-identified fault lines.
Healthcare and dependency professionals want exemplary facilities
Healthcare professionals are worried and tired, but not resigned. Their responses show great confidence in their own strength and abilities. They feel useful and in their place. Experts in the field, involved and enlightened, they are ready to act and have ideas. Almost 90% of respondents would like to see health and social care establishments set an example in terms of waste management, transport, energy consumption, quality of life at work, etc., and just as many are in favor of obtaining funding to encourage establishments to comply with environmental, social and societal criteria. From the turmoil in which they find themselves, they want to restore meaning to their profession.
Healthcare professionals feel an immense need to express themselves
At a time when the healthcare system is under strain, 2,247 healthcare professionals, 62% of whom work in a facility that cares for patients with Covid-19, took the time to share their emotions, ideas and expectations. 98% of respondents filled in the questionnaire in its entirety, and filled in the "comments" boxes: 12,000 words and as many ideas were collected.
A body generally in unison
Generally speaking, there are few differences in responses across professions and public/private sectors.
Health professionals believe in their strength and stand together
63.6% of responding healthcare professionals don't feel resigned (not really or not at all).
83.2% of them feel useful and in their place (completely or somewhat).
As for the strengths revealed by the crisis, respondents most frequently cited the collective capacity for reorganization (79%), mutual support between colleagues (68.1%), and the usefulness of each individual in the care chain (65.9%).
Environmental impact, social responsibility: they want to act!
81.5% of respondents felt that the crisis had revealed a glaring or fairly glaring lack of health education among the population.
57.6% of healthcare professionals believe that the crisis will create the conditions for positive change in the healthcare system.
91% of respondents were in favor of maintaining the momentum, and in particular the inventiveness, at work during the pandemic (strongly/mostly).
24.7% cited the fear that nothing would change after the pandemic, the reason given as number 2, just after fear of the risk of contamination.
87.7% of respondents would like to see healthcare and medico-social establishments become exemplary in their management of waste, transport, energy consumption, quality of life at work... A total of 93.7% want to act or are already acting in this direction.
69.4% see it as the role of professionals to be inventive, and 71.3% are surprised by so much inventiveness.
Collective mobilization to accelerate the ecological and social transition
- Reinventing yourself
The health crisis has revealed many breaking points in the French healthcare system, but it has also highlighted the strength of those working in the field. The results of this survey show that they are worried and tired, but ready to "reinvent" themselves. They have just demonstrated an immense capacity for change, and the majority say they wish to take immediate action to transform their establishments towards a more sustainable model!
- Three first proposals
Initiative n°1 - Immediately promote locally manufactured, multiple-use protective equipment at a time when establishments are unable to manage the colossal increase in infectious risk waste.
Initiative n°2 - according to a precise timetable, decarbonize the healthcare and dependency sector: develop short circuits and promote the circular economy, rethink transport, optimize waste, etc.
Initiative no. 3 - combat multi-resistant bacteria: 38% of antibiotics and 73% of antimicrobial products worldwide are used on farm animals. The WHO estimates that antibiotic resistance could kill 10 million people every year, if nothing is done, by 2050, while it already causes 12,500 deaths a year in France.
- What do you want to learn from the crisis?
Here are a few comments. A wider selection can be found in the full report, downloadable below.
" Recurring lack of equipment."
"You can't achieve anything alone."
"A couple of caregivers, in the field and exposed, with 2 very young children, we feel exhausted and are afraid of what will happen if we fall ill at the same time. Who's going to look after our children?"
"Fracture and social inequalities, the absence of decisions on our consumption patterns and environmental protection."
"Recognition through thanks instead of improved working conditions."
"My own health and that of my loved ones."
"The tremendous solidarity, the availability of staff, the ability to reorganize in record time."
"Dare to be new... Think of the patient first before thinking of the facility's political strategy."
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