Faced with the emergency crisis, and the day after a day of mobilization of hospital staff, the Minister of Health announced on Wednesday June 8 a salvo of first “emergency” measures in order to overcome a “difficult summer” to the hospital, “without waiting” the conclusions of the flash mission on emergencies. Among them, the possibility of exercising in the summer for student nurses and nursing assistants whose training ends in June or July, facilitating the accumulation of employment and retirement, and the doubling of overtime pay.
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Regarding remuneration, Thierry Amouroux, spokesperson for the National Union of Nursing Professionals, considers on franceinfo that “It’s good news” but that this “absolutely does not compensate for the current shortcomings”. “The boat is sinking and Mrs. Bourguignon provides us with a glass to bail out”denounces the union. “We are in a situation where the hospital is collapsing, not just the emergency room but in all the services with 15% of the beds which are closed in the hospitals of Paris for examplehe continues. These measures absolutely do not respond to that.”
“We have to give ourselves the means, change the software: certainly increase the salaries, but also review the ratios of patients per nurse to make those who have stopped practicing want to come back to the hospital. The announced means are not enough. .”
Thierry Amouroux, spokesperson for the National Union of Nursing Professionalsat franceinfo
“These measures are nothing new, we are taking measures that have shown their ineffectiveness”laments for his part François Salachas, neurologist at the Pitié-Salpêtrière hospital in Paris and member of the inter-hospital collective. “We are in a communication war with a need for reactivity”, laments François Salachas. He points in particular to the increase in overtime and wonders: “Are there the staff currently in the emergency room to ensure these overtime? Will these staff decide not to take a vacation when they are already exhausted by guards who are extremely repetitive? According to the staff surveyed by the inter-hospital collective, “It’s not going to change anything.”
François Salachas remains skeptical about the minister’s proposal to work “student nurses and caregivers who completed their initial training in June and July without waiting for the official presentation of their diploma”. He points “the personal risk that they are made to run in terms of weakening”.
“We really have the impression that we are in a rescue-who-can.”
François Salachas, neurologist at the Pitié-Salpêtrière hospital in Parisat franceinfo
“Faced with a major problem of this type, we cannot be satisfied with small measures. We must restore confidence. And it is not with these increased overtime hours that confidence will return.” The doctor considers more generally that all the measures do not solve the discomfort of the caregivers. “Where are the major efforts to change the very nature of work today in public hospitals, namely the suffering that comes with doing your job badly and mistreating patients?”
For its part, the union of general practitioners MG France has “Solutions to propose to the Minister and to the mission of François Braun”, says on franceinfo Jacques Battistoni. In particular, it offers “to relieve the emergencies of missions which are not necessarily theirs”. GPs “participate in the regulation of requests for unscheduled care. Anything that finds an answer in city medicine is something that avoids going to the emergency room”. Doctors would also like “to have the possibility of hospitalizing directly, without going through the emergency room, patients who come under a specific service for whom we know that they are being followed and for whom we know to whom they should be sent”adds Jacques Battistoni.
But MG France is not “not favorable” the return of compulsory on-call duty for liberal doctors. “It’s not the right solution to a problem.” According to Jacques Battistoni, “the problem does not arise at night” because “it’s organized and there are answers”. The problem arises on “end of day”underlines the doctor. “It’s called continuity of care. It’s the difficulty for people to find someone at 6 p.m.”. He proposes to“advance the daycare schedule a little bit at the end of the day, because we know that’s when there are a lot of requests.”