A new night without adult emergencies at the Toulouse University Hospital. A strong gesture to alert on the lack of personnel and means. This is the message that the Toulouse caregivers wanted to convey, by massively responding to the call from the unions, in particular the CGT, for a second strike action in a week.
The strike ended this Tuesday, June 14 in the morning at 7 a.m. But should we be worried about the situation in the hospital, before the summer and with the current hot weather? Christophe Mazin, the secretary general of the Toulouse University Hospital, is our guest this morning.
Christophe Mazin, hello. You are therefore facing an unprecedented strike at the Purpan hospital. Last night you had to turn away a lot of patients who came for treatment that night because of the strike?
I want to reassure the people of Toulouse. The night went well, it was relatively calm. Indeed, we had to reduce our offer on emergencies, but we are fully reopening this morning. Since 7 a.m., all of our emergencies on the two sites, Purpan and Rangueil, have reopened on time. And we obviously maintained all the care, and particularly vital emergencies.
So even a patient, who had for example broken his arm last night, was taken care of?
Exactly. The entire hospital community has organized itself in order to be able to maintain all of the care. We have reduced direct admissions in all departments and this has streamlined emergency care. The crowds were relatively small, but despite everything, all the patients were taken care of.
No refusal, no transfer of patients, no offer of care at the CHU has been refused or not honored.
But how did you do it? Management speaks of 41% of strikers, up to even 80% of strikers according to the unions. Have you called retired doctors?
The mobilization rate was between 40 to 50% depending on the services. It is true that it is a fairly strong mobilization rate, compared to last week, when it was more around 15 to 20%.
Despite everything, the CHU has taken its responsibilities: the director general in conjunction with the director general of the Regional Health Agency (ARS) launched the White Plan this weekend to anticipate. Anticipating has allowed us to organize staff recall plans – volunteers of course. They have ensured the continuity of our organizations and care.
It was essential and the denial was noted by all the caregivers. And we were able to free up 60 to 80 beds in all of our services so that emergencies have downstream beds. They prevent patients from waiting too long in the corridors.
It seems to hear you that there is no crisis situation in the emergency room of Toulouse. Do you agree, like the unions, that the situation is serious?
The situation is indeed tense. There are weaknesses. We are on a conjunction of several facts at the same time: there is a strong mobilization and at the same time, difficulties in ensuring the minimum service. We are not going to hide from the difficulties in assigning personnel since it is part of the obligations of the public service to be mobilized. However, some mobilizations could not be possible and therefore, despite everything, we had to go as far as recall plans for personnel.
And there were also unexpected, observed, coordinated sick leaves, which we discovered over the weekend, which further weakened our White Plan, our resource battle plan.
Last week, the president of the hospital’s medical commission denounced a “hostage-taking of caregivers”. Do you regret those comments?
There is no hostage-taking of caregivers. There is a dialogue that must be established with all the teams, caregivers and with the unions as well. And that is the whole issue of the platform of demands that has been on the table since last Thursday.
There is a whole meeting site in place, to analyze and deal with on a case-by-case basis as well. And also check with the teams that there is a real support for all these demands and that behind them, we can decline them in the organizations.
The unions are asking for 22 nursing positions and 18 additional nursing assistants. Are you ready to respond to their requests?
The unions, in fact, have put on the table a request for around 35 additional jobs. While the emergency services of the CHU had benefited since 2019 from 22 additional jobs and from the summer, these sectors were reinforced with nurses and nursing assistants. At this stage, the requests must be processed and analyzed on a case-by-case basis, because all the claims cover several emergency sectors.
How many recruitments can you expect?
I cannot advance, out of respect for the negotiations, for the teams, for the agents. You don’t write the end of the story when you start talking. On the other hand, we set the framework for negotiation, both in dialogue and trust in the teams.
So discussions are continuing today with the unions?
They started last week. There are still exchanges yesterday with the teams and there are going to be other meetings with the HRD and the unions to be able to look at all the demands, subject by subject.
Will strike hours be paid to strikers?
Within the framework of the negotiation and the organization, yes at this stage, we organize ourselves like that.
A final word, Christophe Mazin, with the high temperatures expected this week, we should be on heatwave alert. Do you expect an influx of patients at the Toulouse University Hospital?
The White Plan is still running and from this point of view, it may also obviously be usable for the heat wave. We are able to welcome all patients and it is part of our obligations to carry out these public service missions at a time when, in fact, we are expecting peaks in attendance.
We are at more than 400 visits per day to the emergency room. It’s no longer peaks: it’s recurrent, it’s daily. And it is the whole sense of the organization that we have posed, to be able to ensure peaks in connection also with the partners of the City and the other clinics with which we are strongly involved. We work hand in hand to be able to ensure the response throughout the Toulouse basin.
Coming back to the strike, are you hoping for an end to the conflict this week?
We hope to make progress in the discussions with the staff representatives and we count on everyone’s responsibility. Let everyone find a sense of consensus and compromise to get out of the situation from above.