Emmanuel Macron’s visit to the Cherbourg University Hospital on Tuesday May 31 is “an awareness of a situation which is extremely serious since we have a large number of emergency services which are partially or totally closed”, estimated on franceinfo Philippe Juvin, mayor LR of Garenne-Colombes, head of the emergency department of the Georges Pompidou hospital in Paris. Faced with a lack of caregivers, public hospitals are in a critical situation as the summer holidays approach.
“Almost all of the emergency services in France are experiencing activity and staffing difficulties and great disarray among the staff. So the situation is very serious.”
Philippe Juvinat franceinfo
At the Georges Pompidou hospital in Paris where Philippe Juvin works, the situation “is more preserved” than in other hospitals in France, he says. “But there is not a single emergency department in France that is not understaffed. It is a global and critical situation”, adds the doctor.
According to him, the difficulties encountered in hospitals can be explained in particular by the fact “that we do not take enough care of caregivers. The most important wealth of the healthcare system is the caregivers, all those who make the system work”. “When you come out of a night on duty you are exhausted, worn out, you have seen someone whom you have prevented from dying several times during the night, you have accompanied families in mourning, you are full of blood, of sweat , and you won’t go home unscathed. This recognition of a profession apart, you have to do it”, insisted Philippe Juvin.
During his trip to Cherbourg Emmanuel Macron promised to launch “a one-month mission to find out the truth about prices on the subject of unscheduled care”. For Philippe Juvin, it is also necessary to improve the work system and review the organization: “I have been pleading for years for a system which would consist of filtering emergency reception”. According to him, “It is not normal that you can come in a completely open way when you have had a pimple on your buttocks for three months. We must bear in mind that emergencies can be filtered.”
There is an imminent risk of disruptions in access to care due to a lack of nursing staff, warned Rémi Salomon, president of the conference of presidents of CHU establishment medical committees last week on franceinfo. “We already know that we have patients that we have not been able to treat for two years. Mr. Salomon is right to point this out. This situation of delay” will increase in the weeks “which come but it already exists”explained Philippe Juvin.