summer measures deemed insufficient

Announcements to try to stem the anger of the nursing staff. The Minister of Health, Brigitte Bourguignon, communicated a series of measures in hospitals for the summer: “We have decided to reactivate the doubling of overtime pay for non-medical staff and additional working time for doctors for the entire summer period”. In addition to this increase, nursing assistant students will be able to practice directly, if their training ends in June or July. Voluntary retirees to go back to work will see their combined retirement employment facilitated. In this hospital center in Haute-Provence, the emergency department has had to close 46 nights since the start of the year. Here, at least seven doctors and several nursing assistants are missing.

For one of the hospital unions, the minister’s announcements are not enough: “It’s all the measures that have been applied to each Covid crisis that have caused caregivers to leave the hospital en masse for two and a half years. So there is nothing today that responds to the urgency of the situation. What we expect is that there is a massive training plan immediately”. In total in France, 120 emergency services would find themselves in high tension today.