The situation of emergency services has deteriorated this summer for four out of ten hospitals

How are France’s hospitals doing? Summer operations in emergency rooms, which have been difficult for years, have deteriorated this summer in more than a third of public hospitals, according to a barometer published Tuesday by the French Hospital Federation (FHF).

According to this barometer, carried out among 260 establishments, 39% of them believe that the situation in their emergency departments has deteriorated in 2024, compared to 46% of establishments which believe that the situation has remained stable compared to 2023, and 15% which observe an improvement.

Thus, if waiting times were already very long in emergency rooms, they have become even longer this summer. The cause: the lack of staff in public hospitals, and of available beds in the departments, particularly in psychiatry.

Some private clinics are also being singled out: they are accused of not having played the game of providing continuous care. “It was trying, we were informed the same day that the emergency room of one of the clinics would be closed every night of every weekend during the summer”explains Martin Trelcat, director of the Le Havre Hospital Group, who points out difficulties in organizing.We didn’t have time to adapt the schedules. The whole month of July was very complicated, then it only calmed down in mid-August.”he says.

“It’s not possible anymore”says Zaynab Riet, general delegate of the French Hospital Federation. She would like to force clinics to play their part and provide emergency care. “We will have to regulate, that is to say that if we have authorization to do emergencies then we do emergencies,” says the manager, who is worried about periods of tension in the summer or during the Christmas holidays.

After their threat of a general strike last June, the clinics obtained additional funding but there was never any question of forcing them to provide emergency services during the summer in return.