Issues in the management of patient companions in Hospital : the case of Hospital du Mali

Abstract

Patient support is the act of bringing a patient to the hospital and staying at his bedside to assist him throughout his stay during hospitalization. This is a real security challenge in hospitals in Mali. In this work we propose to study the advantages and constraints related to the accompaniment of patients at the Hospital of Mali. We prospectively collected the impressions of 450 caregivers and 60 staff from the Mali Hospital between January 1 and December 31, 2021. Individual questionnaires were used to collect the data which was analyzed on SPSS-IBM.5.2. We found an average age of 40.5 ± 6.8 years, between 15 years for the youngest and 69 years for the oldest, 65% of the companions were women with a sex ratio of 1.8 . The average number of companions was 5 ± 3 per patient, 60% of the companions thought that their role was to cook and shop for exams and to buy medicines, 90% of the companions were permanent, were unaware of the rules of the hospital and satisfied with the care services, 55.1% of the accompanying persons were installed in a place not dedicated to this purpose. 90% of the agents find that the companions help in the care of the sick, however they have a negative impact on the environment. Patient support is a phenomenon that marks the momentum of Malian solidarity, however it remains a major constraint, because it is not well structured and framed by the practical organization of care at Hospital du Mali.