They were only about twenty gathered this Tuesday in front of the Maison de la Culture in Amiens. The CGT called for mobilization to request more human and financial resources. A very small gathering that the union members present explained by a exhaustion and general discouragement nursing staff and the medico-social sector, faced with a shortage for months.
“A haemorrhage of personnel”
The workforce in the services is increasingly reduced. For months, punctually, surgical and medical beds have been closed due to lack of staff. And this summer, at the Saint-Victor Center which includes an EHPAD and long-term care units (USLD), a 30-bed service will close in July, another in August. Employees fear that a third will still close in September. “Sometimes in the evening when we come home we blame ourselves, because we don’t have time to take care of the patients as we would like” laments a nurse, who notably takes care of patients with Alzheimer’s disease.
Sometimes I get angry because we can’t take the time with our patients. We feel alone.
Currently, 14 nursing positions and 10 nursing assistants have been vacant in the Centre, and have been for several months. The hospital is facing major recruitment difficulties. “Today there is a haemorrhage of personnel because the profession no longer sells” denounces Claire Boulinguiez, CGT secretary of the CHU of Amiens. “Professionals all flee from the hospital, go into the private sector, because in the public sector we are underpaid” abounds Laetitia Allen, general secretary of the Departmental Health Union of the Somme.
Worry about summer and emergencies
As in all hospitals in France, concern is also growing as summer approaches, because it is difficult to find replacements even in the interim. Not to mention that in Amiens, the emergencies of the Europe clinic close at nightforcing those of the CHU to take care of more patients. “The first impacted are the patients” recalls Claire Boulinguiez, “they spend more time in the emergency room, lack of personnel, they are sent home because we are short of beds, and they suffer from this on a daily basis in the care. We have to go quickly, we no longer have time to do work relational care.
We’re going straight into the wall, towards two-speed health
The union calls on the government to release more resources for the public hospital, in order to increase salaries, allow early retirement for trades recognized as arduous, and increase the number of caregivers and medical-social workers in all services.