The thermometer showed more than 30 ° C in his child’s room on Tuesday and the father of a baby hospitalized in University Hospital of Bordeaux, judging that the situation was no longer tenable, went to buy a portable air conditioner, for the amount of 400 euros and installed it himself in the room. An example which illustrates the great exasperation of the parents of children hospitalized during this heat wave, when certain sectors of the CHU (such as that of the children’s day hospital) are not air-conditioned. “We received a lot of letters from parents, says Franck Olliver from south social health union. We know that these are simply budgetary reasons which explain the absence of air conditioning”.
“Unbearable hospital conditions”
“As soon as we arrived in the service, at 8.15 a.m., we were struck by the stifling heat in the premises, a heat which only increased when we arrived in the room and over the course of the morning”, writes for example a relative. The union has made public temperature readings which go up to 44 ° C in the room but which are denied by the management of the CHU which however recognizes “very high temperatures”. Other parents point to excessive heat when they accompanied their 3-year-old daughter for an MRI and several examinations: “Only a small fan equips the rooms, which is quite insufficient”, they protest. All the letters emphasize the investment and benevolence of the teams while pointing to unbearable temperatures. “Despite all their efforts, the hospital conditions are very unpleasant and unbearable. There is no air conditioning or shutters that work in the rooms, ”alarms another.
A peak of more than 40°C reported in a room
This Monday, an incident report alert sheet pointed to excessive temperatures in the pediatric day hospital. The person who wrote it, a member of the healthcare team, says that an 8-year-old boy had a hypoglycemic crisis (related to the test which was to take place on an empty stomach) in “very degraded conditions” since It was over 40°C in the room. His mother was so concerned that she was unable to reassure her child, says the caregiver in her note. She decided to put him in the treatment room and to “condemn” his room. The management assured AFP on Tuesday that “no patient discomfort was attributed to a situation of hyperthermia on Monday in the pediatric day hospital sector”.
Other departments of the Bordeaux University Hospital are affected by these temperatures, such as the USN building (standard care units) in Haut-Lévêque, the Pellegrin maternity hospital and the Pellegrin staff crèche.
Portable air conditioners have been installed in certain corridors, foggers have been distributed, but for the Sud social health union this is “last minute DIY”, whereas it is a known and recurring problem in the oldest parts of the vast CHU. “The measures are not at all up to par, believes Franck Olliver. We are told to be patient but it has been the same situation every year for ten years”.