The nurses consider themselves capable of taking up the challenge

Khalid Ait Taleb’s decision to grant nurse anesthetists the possibility of performing anesthesia and resuscitation has angered doctors. If the ministry thinks that this decision is largely justified in order to face the shortage of anesthesiologists and resuscitators, the latter affirm that such a decision could prove to be dangerous and put the lives of patients in danger. For their part, the nurses do not seem against it and consider themselves capable of carrying out such sensitive acts in critical cases.

Unjustified anger, according to the nurses!

Faced with the anger of the doctors, the nurses are confident. We contacted the representatives of the profession to shed light on the existing points of divergence. In a statement to “L’Opinion”, Habib Kroum, president of the National Federation of Intensive Care Anesthesiologists (FNAR), affirms that the shortage of anesthesiologists dates back a long time, even before the mandate of the current Minister of Health and Protection. social.

According to him, the circular is in favor of nurse anesthetists, who, before this regulation, were not able to make the decision to perform anesthesia for patients in critical situations.

As the refusal of assistance to a person in danger is an offense punishable by the Penal Code, the anger of the doctors in the face of this ministerial decision is in no way explained, insists Mr. Kroum who specifies that leaving a patient in danger to suffer , and who risk losing their lives, for reasons of lack of manpower, is “ethically, humanely and religiously unacceptable”. He adds that the circular represents a kind of protection for both patients and nurses, to prevent the latter from being reprimanded for non-intervention during cases deemed critical and those declared urgent.

In fact, in recent years, the lack of staff in the health sector is increasingly felt. Thus, in anesthesia and resuscitation, Morocco has only 200 doctors, a lack which affects the programming of surgical acts and, consequently, deprives citizens of their right to access the necessary care.

As a reminder, the Minister of Health and Social Protection, Khalid Ait Taleb, in a circular dated September 7, called on anesthesia and resuscitation nurses in the sector “to temporarily take over the most previously scheduled by the head doctor or the surgeon, and which cannot be postponed, even in the absence of an anesthesiologist-resuscitator”.

At the same time, the ministry’s decision caused the National Federation of Anesthesiologists of Morocco (FNAM) to react, which, in its statement dated September 9, considers that the lack of staff in the public sector is not able to justify such a decision considered to go against international recommendations.