“The days when we go home at 9 p.m., when we go to bed hungry because we don’t have time to go shopping, because we’re too exhausted, it’s our daily“, testifies Nejm Si Mohamed, secretary general of the national intersyndicale of interns, invited Tuesday, September 6 on franceinfo. While the working time of interns in medicine is set at 48 hours per week, the intersyndicale warns of non-compliance of this right.
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“Nothing has been done to set up a count of working time“, denounces the intern at the CHU Montpellier-Nîmes. “To enforce this, the only solution we see is recourse to the administrative tribunal.“, he continues.
franceinfo: What are the days of a medical intern like?
Nejm Si Mohamed: The days when we go home at 9 p.m., when we go to bed hungry because we don’t have time to go shopping, because we’re too exhausted, it’s our daily. The workload, the emotional demands, it is the daily life of the interns. I remember this moment when, in a meeting, we said to each other, a little embarrassed, “Oh you too are on leave for burn-out?“Once the first discomforts passed, we realized that it was up to us to make things change, to speak up, to say that things are not going well, to say that we need to rest. These things- We don’t learn them because we are taught to be strong, to hold on until the end, with the risk of work addiction which is very dangerous for the state of mental health of interns.
This summer, you warned hospitals of a possible legal action if they did not apply the decree on the working time of interns. How was this call received?
We have joined forces with the other unions to give notice to all CHUs and hospitals in France to enforce the hourly count of working time. But, even if the Council of State concluded that it was the responsibility of public establishments to set up a duty roster and a system for counting working time, this has not yet been done. Some hospitals, some department heads, want to put themselves in order to respect this. But, currently, nothing has been undertaken in a concrete way to set up this mechanism for counting working time and to enforce the legal maximum time which is 48 hours per week.
Is it a mentality problem that needs to be changed, in your opinion?
Yes, there is a basis, a presupposition, according to which the doctor must render service to others. There is a feeling of heroism that leads some doctors, some interns, to think that you can’t leave if you haven’t settled everything before the end of the day, which sometimes is impossible to do before 22 hours, 11 p.m.
“It also denotes a certain system that taught us to give our all, never to stop and which does not allow us to sanctuary moments of rest, moments for ourselves.”
Nejm Si Mohamed, Secretary General of the National Intersyndicale des Internesat franceinfo
Do you think that to change things, you have to go so far as to go to administrative justice?
Yes. For two years that I have been active in the trade union of interns, despite everything we have tried, nothing has ever been done, nothing concrete. For our interns, caregivers and patients to be in good health, working conditions must be dignified, and to enforce this, the only solution we see is recourse to the administrative court.
What advice would you give to young doctors who are about to begin their residency?
Do what’s right, fight for what’s right. If you let small changes in your personal life go by, you lose your footing. And, little by little, we find ourselves in a spiral that prevents us from regaining our footing. Knowing how to put barriers in your daily life is one of the things I learned in pain and I don’t want anyone to learn it the same way I did.