Nurses exhausted by virus hang up uniforms for other jobs

BRUSSELS – One is a pastry chef. Another dreams of becoming a bookseller. They have all slammed the door of the hospitals where they used to work, exhausted by wave after wave of COVID-19 patients.

Nolwenn Le Bonzec, a former nurse who moved from her native Britain to Brussels, the Belgian capital, recounted how she hung up her surgical uniform six months ago and has not looked back.

Now she makes little colorful cupcakes. A radical change that “saved my sanity,” he says.

“I worked for five years in a hospital. Little by little I saw that working conditions were going downhill and health became a mere product. Initially, it was a profession that we did to be human,” says the 27-year-old wears the apron black from the “Lilicup” store where he now works.

Thomas Laurent, another former nurse, wanted to work in a hospital since he was 15 years old; it was an “old dream,” he explains. In January he will begin training as a bookseller.

The 35-year-old Frenchman has just left the emergency room of the Lyon hospital, in central France. Conditions there, he says, “were no longer tolerable.”

Despite a desperate request from European authorities for medical staff to treat wave after wave of COVID-19 patients, these former nurses speak of disappointment and disappointment with public health systems that they say have failed to achieve what they they were designed.

“We have demanded better conditions for years. But the (Belgian) government just doesn’t take us seriously,” says Le Bonzec.

“If it had continued, I think it would have fallen into a depression. We protested. We got up. But nothing changed.”

‘THEY DIED ALONE’

Looking back on his days at the Saint-Luc clinic in Brussels, he explains that he questioned his choice of profession when the first wave of coronavirus occurred in early 2020.

“Psychologically, it was very hard, working in quarantine rooms, fighting all the time just to have masks. We put our health and that of our families at risk. And those patients were not allowed to receive visitors. They were alone, they died alone. .. We were not enough “.

The staffing shortage weighed heavily on the care provided to patients, he says.

“Unfortunately, we rushed our treatment. And when we did everything fast, we did it wrong … It was unbearable,” he says.

Day by day, showing up at the hospital became increasingly difficult to contemplate. Until finally she felt no more energy for the job she had chosen, just “frustration” and “foolishness.”

“Six months later, I don’t miss my nursing days. I’m happy to go to work now and to talk about my work day when I get home,” says Le Bonzec.

Laurent agrees. Since he stopped being a nurse, he says, “sleep better.” The crushing daily pressure “has disappeared.” Even his 4 a.m. doesn’t turn off the glowing eyes he presents on his mask.

NO MORE APPLAUSE

The harsh reality of nursing is especially felt among younger staff. “Because they go to that job full of ideals and they get a cold shower when reality arrives, and they don’t always get the support they need,” says Astrid Van Male, a Belgian nurse who has switched roles to support health personnel. cope with burnout.

The people she sees “don’t always think about taking care of themselves because they are used to taking care of other people,” she says. “They wait until their world falls apart around them.”

Some feel guilty about taking vacation days, worrying that it will only add to the burden on their colleagues, he adds.

“If nothing is done, very soon we will not have more health workers in the hospitals. Even foreign nurses do not accept these working conditions.”

During the first wave of coronavirus, applause in appreciation of medical personnel echoed on the balconies of Europe. During this second wave, the applause is absent.

“People applaud us, but they don’t defend us, that’s too easy,” says Le Bonzec. “They need to use their energy to help us!”

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