“How to spend the summer?“The very trivial and concrete question arises in many hospitals in France which lack arms. This crisis that the hospital is going through is not new, and we talk about it regularly, but this time, it takes on proportions that are close to unheard of.
>> We explain why so many emergency services are forced to close before summer
This crisis is increasingly affecting emergency services throughout France, even in large cities like Bordeaux. Emergency rooms are operating at idle or closing in two out of ten hospitals. To avoid disaster when staff go on vacation this summer, everyone has their solutions. To Amiens, the HRD of the Fabien Martinez hospital has completely shortened the leave of some of its employees. “For the moment, we are maintaining a maximum of three weeks of vacation for our professionals, but some will only have two weeks. With great difficulty, we are trying to recruit young graduates who will be leaving school at the end of June or the beginning of July.“
“The summer period is likely to be very complicated with bed closures in certain sectors to be able to let our professionals go on leave despite everything.”
Fabien Martinez, HRD at Amiens Hospitalat franceinfo
Closing beds is the classic solution when there are many absentees. It is probably what the Arles hospital will do. Lhe Director of Human Resources Sophie Debliquy does not want to touch leave. “We have never canceled the annual leave of our professionals. I think that if we do it, it will make the situation even worse, with work stoppages. This is not necessarily the solution. We will surely be forced to close beds”.
In Saint-Brieuc, the hospital has taken out the wallet: it offers 350 euros per week to nurses and caregivers who agree to postpone their holidays after September 15. Hospitals can also hire temporary workers. They do it as a last resort, because it is extremely expensive for them: the price can go up to 4,000 euros a day for a replacement doctor.
For Professor Rémi Salomon, who chairs the representative body of doctors within the CHUs, the absolute urgency, in the long term, is to better pay night, weekend and public holiday penalties. VShe premiums have not changed for 20 years and a nurse only earns 10 euros gross for a night’s work. “We have to pay better, we have no choice”, he begins. The patients are there.
“If we want to recruit, it is better to pay significantly. It is really urgent.”
Rémi Salomon, president of the CHU doctorsat franceinfo
“I think that if we pay much better, it will be a signal that will restore the possibility of recruiting and filling the guard tables.”
In addition, in order to fill the emergency service duty rosters, the hospitals rely on city doctors. Now, it is sometimes difficult to find volunteers to be on call. Frédéric Valletoux, the president of the Fédération hospitalière de France puts his feet in the dish: “What we are asking is that there be an obligation for each health professional to participate in this ongoing care. Of course, I’m not talking about the cœur night, but maybe early evening, maybe weekend late afternoon, maybe even Sunday. Our idea would be to trust the actors in the field to organize themselves among themselves.”
An increase in premiums, compulsory on-call duty for liberal doctors, andt to attract young people to the hospital, the management must also show flexibility, as explained by the HRD of the Arles hospital: “We deal with young professionals who are sometimes confusing, who don’t want to work nights and who don’t want to work weekends. We cannot accede to these requests as we have patients in the beds. We are trying to find an organization with these famous 12 hours of work, which allows professionals to come to the hospital for less time and to have more days off. That’s what’s in high demand right now.”
Finally, it is necessary to retain these young graduates by developing the professions, in particular that of nursing. And then there is money, the sinews of war: investment for hospitals has been halved over the past ten years. The Ségur de la santé has not made up for this delay. Lhe government will have to think about it this fall when it looks at the social security budget.