Rémi Besselièvre, president of the citizens’ association for the defense of the Cotentin hospital center and for the promotion of health, estimated on Tuesday May 31 on franceinfo that the public hospital in France needs a “spectacular shock of resources and a shock of democracy” while Emmanuel Macron goes this afternoon to the hospital of Cherbourg in the Contentin. This department, affected by a lack of caregivers in hospitals and medical deserts, is preparing for a tense summer.
franceinfo: What do you expect from Emmanuel Macron’s visit to Cherbourg?
Rémi Besselièvre: We have seen what the President of the Republic did during his first five-year term. He took two steps, basically. The abolition of the numerus clausus, which solved nothing because the means were not given to the faculties of medicine and hospitals to be able to accommodate these students. The numerus clausus is the possibility for first-year students to move on to second year. The competition has not been modified and we can see that the number of students who go on to second year has not increased. I don’t mind if it took time, but it could have had an immediate effect. If we had changed in particular the nature of the competition. The second measure that has been taken is the Ségur de la santé. This is a measure that was taken at the request of the banks. The Ségur de la santé essentially consisted of taking over a third of the debt of hospitals over ten years to allow banks to refinance over-indebted hospitals, or even in cessation of payment.
But there was also an increase in wages. Wasn’t it enough?
If you ask hospital staff if they are happy with their salaries when compared to other staff in European hospitals, you will understand that they are very unhappy at the moment and that they are expecting something else. We also note that a certain number of doctors and nurses are leaving public hospitals because salary and working conditions are no longer up to retaining them.
Is the Pasteur hospital in Cherbourg a good example for the President of the Republic to realize the state of public hospitals?
It is true that in the patient zone of the Cherbourg hospital, which has approximately 170,000 inhabitants, 20,000 have no attending physician, so people tend to turn to the public hospital, which is the pivot of the health system in our country to be taken care of. Unfortunately, working conditions in reception services have deteriorated considerably. And today, in Cherbourg, the lack of doctors is glaring since only six to seven doctors are responsible for the operation.
What are you going to tell him?
We are going to tell him that we are expecting two shocks, a shock of means, because it is absolutely necessary to provide hospitals with the financial means to ensure their operation. Today, with activity-based pricing, they continue to go into debt. So, a spectacular shock of means and a shock of democracy because in the hospital there is no longer a board of directors. These are supervisory boards. Elected officials, users and staff are excluded from hospital management. And when we entrust the management of the hospital to technocrats and experts, we see the situation in which that leads us.