Participant A: “And why is humanisation so big now?”

Participant B: “Maybe because we are being de-humanized”.

The concept of humanisation in health care is present in the group.

Some participants declare to complete their daily tasks in a humanized manner. They understand and state that the right way to do their job is by putting their focus on the patient and his/her caretakers (especially relatives). But from their comments it can also be inferred that this is not something that is generalized throughout the hospital. And on several occasions they refer to the manner in which other colleagues perform their work as “de-humanized”.

However, they consider that they are sufficiently trained on the topic, and that communication about training related to humanisation and patient centred care is frequent and abundant, but that sometimes “it doesn’t reach the worker”.

Overall they mention the peculiarities of a type, the amount of responsibilities of health care workers and the risks they imply, that may even lead them to stress or to suffer from burnout syndrome, pointing out the lack of tools to overcome personal situations of stress.

And they spontaneously comment about the different behaviours that are demanded of different health care professionals. The physicians are expected to possess a wide scientific and technical knowledge, and the nurses to provide good treatment.

6.3.2. Focus group conducted with physicians from a large hospital

One of the participants in the focus group began with a surprising comment:

Professionals are sent a perverse message, on one hand we tell them that there is a Humanisation Plan, that we should treat patients well, but they are only asked to perform based on activity. In the end your productivity bonus depends on how many patients you operated, how many consultations you attended… activity, activity, activity. What does the head of service care for? Activity, activity, activity. He doesn’t care if you asked a patient how he is doing.

The group in general is critical of the scope of humanisation in the health care system, and it is critical of the Humanisation Plan, especially due to the large amounts of administrative tasks that take time away from other tasks.

They consider that humanisation actions in the hospital achieve great results, but these actions are based on proposals prior or independent to the Plan.

The medical group is very critical of the communication of the Humanisation Plan within the hospital, they deem it insufficient and of suboptimal efficiency. Overall they state that internal communication is scarce: “The middle management doesn’t inform, but information doesn’t reach them in a clear manner either”.

Physicians are knowledgeable and interested in humanisation, but they don’t consider it a basic standard, “such as, for example, hand-washing”.