“On all sides it is exploding”, notes Eric Reboli, emergency doctor

“I have echoes from all the French departments. Every day. From all sides it is exploding”, notes Monday, April 17 on franceinfo Eric Reboli, emergency doctor, spokesperson and president of the National Union of substitute hospital doctors (SNMHR). Since the beginning of April, the remuneration of temporary doctors has been capped at 1,400 euros gross for 24 hours of work. Temporary workers therefore refuse to come and work under these conditions and some hospitals are therefore forced to run understaffed. “They don’t listen to us at all”says Eric Reboli, for whom this situation is fair “the top of the iceberg”.

>> “It’s worse than last summer”: salary cap for interim doctors puts hospitals under pressure

franceinfo: Without you, the hospital had to run badly?
Eric Reboli: We’ve been avoiding medical deserts in the four corners of France for months. We’ve been fighting everywhere for months, strengthening Covid teams, strengthening hospitals to prevent them from closing, entire departments from closing. The only reward we have today is to be stigmatized and mistreated. It is a management that is unpleasant and painful for all employees.

So the list of services that are closing is getting longer?
I have echoes from all the French departments. Every day. The English Channel, Brittany, the Vosges, Corsica… It’s exploding everywhere. It’s just the tip of the iceberg. Services are overdue. Incumbents asked to put in 50-70 hours to plug holes in April, told to cancel vacation in May. The worst are the patients who are no longer taken care of. I have infarction echoes taken care of after 24, 48 or 72 hours. How can a doctor accept that? We can not. But neither can we accept the threat, the coercion of this government.

>> Capping the salary of temporary doctors: “Asking 6,000 euros a day is no longer acceptable”, says Minister Agnès Firmin-Le Bodo

Are we starting to listen to you?
They don’t listen to us at all. This government always finds scapegoats. He doesn’t want to look himself in the face and admit his mistakes. The incumbents are not listened to by their administration. The managers act as if nothing had happened. There is no solution. The problem is the lack of caregivers in France. There are no more doctors or caregivers, they are fleeing hospitals and the government is disconnected from reality.