The SARS‐CoV‐2 epidemic, a step towards recognizing the speciality of critical care nursing in France

Abstract

the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) epidemic has caused a major health crisis. Between March 1 and April 30, SARS-CoV-2 led to an excess daily mortality of 33% compared with average values for the years 2000 to 2019. 1 As of 17th December 2020, a report published by the French National Public Health Agency indicates a cumulative number of 2 427 316 COVID-19 infected patients, with 59 619 deaths, 41 200 of these in hospital. 2 The purpose of this critical commentary is to describe the COVID-19 crisis from the perspective of French intensive care unit (ICU) nurses and to discuss how the pandemic has finally facilitated appropriate recognition for French critical care nurses. This major crisis was managed nationally by the Ministry ofHealth, but every hospital had to locally manage the increased activity due to the admissions of COVID-19 patients with its own means. Decades of political decisions to decrease health costs has led to equipment and staff deficiencies for hospitals. To cope with these limited resources, health care professionals had to create new organizations and set up new collaborations. In the first days of the pandemic in France, health authorities expected that many patients would need intensive care, and an important gap between ICU capacity and demand was feared. Before the pandemic, French ICUs were already under pressure: with only 2.4 ICU beds for 10 000 citizens, half of

A qualitative study of reinforcement workers’ perceptions and experiences of working in intensive care during the COVID-19 pandemic: A PsyCOVID-ICU substudy

“…One lesson learned from this crisis is that there was significant heterogeneity in the reinforcements deployed to ICUs, resulting in varying levels of competence. This in turn may have impacted on patient safety and quality of care [1]. In this context, experienced ICU nurses were responsible for mentoring reinforcement nurses, but it was a complicated task in view of the extremely heavy workload.…”

“…The COVID-19 pandemic has caused unprecedented disruption to healthcare delivery worldwide. Many hospitals rapidly became swamped, as was the case in France at the various peaks of the epidemic [1]. Capacity (in terms of number of beds) quickly had to be scaled up, with the creation of extra critical care beds, requiring a corresponding increase in qualified staff [1,2].…”

“…Many hospitals rapidly became swamped, as was the case in France at the various peaks of the epidemic [1]. Capacity (in terms of number of beds) quickly had to be scaled up, with the creation of extra critical care beds, requiring a corresponding increase in qualified staff [1,2]. Massive reinforcement of the intensive care unit (ICU) workforce was achieved thanks to a complex reorganization process covering various domains of the hospital activity.…”

Rethinking the optimal organizational and nurse educational model in the light of the COVID‐19 pandemic

“…In March 2020, the World Health Organization (WHO) declared COVID‐19 a global pandemic with more than 150 countries affected with unprecedented pressure on intensive care beds within the adult population 1‐3 . From China's and other countries' experience, the burden of COVID‐19 infection within the paediatric hospital setting was anticipated to be far less than for adults 4,5 . In March 2020, the UK government required all elective surgery to be suspended, although urgent surgery would still need to be provided to neonates and children with congenital heart disease.…”

What is in the journal?

“…In the first critical commentary for this issue, Poiroux and colleagues described the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic from the perspective of French critical care nurses, and the impact this has had on the recognition of critical care nursing as a speciality. 17 In response to the pandemic in France, ICU beds increased from 5000 to 10 200 between March and April 2020. Like many countries, this increase was staffed by redeploying nurses into critical care from operating theatres and wards.…”