The Paris Olympics have “not aggravated” tensions, assures the ministry, which is following “the situation closely”

The situation remains “comparable to the summers observed over the last two or three years,” assures the president of the French Hospital Federation.

The current situation in hospital emergencies “was not aggravated by the Paris Olympics”, assured the Ministry of Health, Labor and Solidarity on Wednesday, August 14, to the Agence Radio France, while emergency services are reporting real tensions. Several services have indeed been forced to regulate in recent months, but the ministry promises to “monitor the situation closely.”

In Laval, for the first time, the emergency room will remain open for only six nights in September, reports France Bleu Mayenne. The emergency room in Carpentras will only be able to keep its doors open in the morning for the next three months, according to information from France Bleu Vaucluse. The ministry attributes these temporary closures to “mainly due to a lack of health professionals” and ensures that “alternative solutions” are put in place, as “regulation by the centers 15”.

The president of the French Hospital Federation, Arnaud Robinet, believes to the Agence Radio France that this situation “very contrasting and heterogeneous depending on the territories” still remains “comparable to the summers observed over the last two or three years”. “The emergency services of public hospitals have also organized themselves to deal with the phenomena usually encountered at this time of year with a drop in scheduled activity, the need to guarantee leave for professionals and the limitation of the city and private sector offer”, he adds.

Furthermore, the Ministry of Health assures that “the human resources situation in hospitals is improving.” He attributes this improvement to the introduction of new measures, notably mentioning “the doubling of pay for on-call, standby and public holiday work, the establishment of Health Care Access Services (SAS) which cover nearly 90% of the population”. “The massive training of new health professionals is starting to bear fruit, with a gradual reduction in the number of vacant positions and the reopening of beds”, supports the Duquesne Avenue Ministry.

This argument does not convince the Inter-Urgences collective. Its president Pierre Schwob-Tellier denounces to the Agence Radio France explains that he has observed temporary closures of emergency services for several years now. He also assures that the Olympic Games “do not reflect reality” from the field. For Pierre Schwob-Tellier, “many Parisians” have fled the capital, which therefore leads to a drop in the number of people using emergency services in the Paris region, but an increase in tourist regions.

This year again, the co-president of Inter-Urgences is therefore calling for “real impact studies” emergency department closures on patients. In the meantime, he describes a “hyper-precarious health system” and denounces “a real desire to destroy the health system” through bed closures and the deterioration of working conditions for hospital staff.