To make sure you don't miss anything, subscribe: https://bit.ly/EnquêtesEtReportages Who hasn't accompanied a loved one or been treated in an emergency department? 18 million people go through the emergency department every year, a figure that has continued to increase since the gradual closure of local hospitals and the removal of the obligation for community doctors to be on call. As a result, there is a lot of criticism regarding the emergency department: long waiting times, premises that are not always welcoming, overwhelmed staff. We wanted to understand, in concrete terms, in what conditions doctors, nurses and nursing assistants work? What tools are they given to treat us, whatever our means or the illness that is eating away at us? Alexandra Alévêque worked as a nursing assistant in the emergency department of the Lyon-Sud hospital. For 3 weeks, she worked the same hours as her colleagues, working 12 hours straight, day and night. As a nursing assistant, she did not have to provide any medical care, but welcomed patients, took their blood pressure and temperature, helped them change their street clothes for a hospital gown. She pampered grandparents during long hours of waiting, she lent a hand to doctors and nurses in their daily lives, stretchering patients to the different departments of the hospital or helping caregivers control a patient when the tension sometimes became too high. The Lyon-Sud hospital is a city within a city. 5,000 people work there and nearly 1,000 patients are treated there every day. The establishment's emergency room is often the gateway for patients who will be treated there. Nearly 100 people can be admitted there every day. Some leave after a few hours, others are admitted to a department of the hospital or to other establishments in Lyon. As is the case at the national level, 1/3 of the men and women who arrive at the emergency room are elderly people, a fragile population, who deserve great attention. However, everyone must be treated equally in the emergency room. Homeless, young, old, rich, the public hospital offers us all the opportunity to be treated, but are the resources implemented sufficient? The department in which Alexandra worked is neither better nor worse off than any other, it is simply representative of the great difficulties that emergency doctors face in France. However, Alexandra Alévêque has worked alongside doctors who still believe in their profession and its usefulness, despite complicated nights, exhausting morally and physically. Xavier Jacob, the head of department, the doctors, Tina, Marion, Pierre, Mohamed and all the others opened the doors of the department to her and dressed in the uniform of the caregivers, she shared their daily life. With the nurses Maxence, Delphine, Christine, she worked all night, from 7pm to 7am, she experienced the speed rushes, the constant waltz of ambulances bringing patients, the crowded waiting rooms, the complaints, the fits of laughter and the slumps at 3am, the nighttime meals, the violence of some patients. With the nursing assistants, Josiane and Christine, she measured the importance of small gestures, of attentions that make it possible to improve an often long wait, in cramped premises. For 1200 euros net per month, they give their heart and soul, for hours, forgetting the hardness of often thankless tasks. Their job is a priesthood, of great complexity and yet, they would not leave the emergency room for all the gold in the world. But how much longer will these services last if we do not pay more attention to them? First Broadcast: 08/12/2015 Directed by Richard Puech Written by Alexandra Alévêque