The white coats go out into the street. In the midst of the emergency crisis and a few days before the legislative elections, nine unions (including the CGT, SUD and the CFE-CGC) and collectives (including Inter-Hôpitaux and Inter-Urgences) are organizing a day of mobilization, this Tuesday, June 7, in at least fifty cities in France. In Paris, the demonstrators are expected in front of the Ministry of Health from 1:30 p.m. Franceinfo goes around the reasons for the anger of caregivers.
>> Follow the mobilization day in French hospitals in our live
Because the situation is critical in emergencies
Emergencies are cracking everywhere. Nearly 120 emergency services are in great difficulty due to a lack of personnel, according to a list drawn up at the beginning of June by the Samu-Urgences de France union (SUdF). This represents nearly 20% of the 620 establishments – public and private – which have such units in France. Consequence: they are already forced to limit their activities or are preparing to do so.
In these conditions, “access to primary care is increasingly complicatedare indignant in a joint press release the nine unions and collectives which call for a day of demonstration this Tuesday. The crisis is already here, endangering the health of the population.”
Because caregivers are demanding recruitment and increases
Nothing new on the caregiver signs. “The claims are
unchanged for three years”claim the unions and hospital collectives in their press release. These relate mainly to two points: the immediate recruitment of additional professionals and the general increase in salaries.
On the first point, the trade unions are also asking for a multidisciplinary training plan, as well as ratios of professionals adapted to the workload and respect for teams and schedules. Regarding salary increases, they must allow the recognition of the constraints and the hardships of the hours as well as the qualifications of the professionals, according to the organizers of the day of mobilization. The latter are also calling for increased financial resources for the establishments.
These measures are eagerly awaited by professionals. “In my service, I was forced to close ten out of thirty beds due to the departure of staff”, emphasizes Professor Agnès Hartemann, head of the diabetology department at La Pitié-Salpêtrière hospital in Paris. What worries me is that people are well at work to treat patients well.”
Because the Ségur de la santé has disappointed
It was one of the flagship plans of Emmanuel Macron’s previous five-year term: the Ségur de la santé, endowed with 19 billion euros, was to make it possible to invest massively in hospitals, with recruitments, upgrades and openings key beds. But he was found to be in default. “Le Ségur gave birth to a mouse, sweeps Professor Agnes Hartemann. The president says he’s here, but he’s not here.”
The insufficient investments of Ségur are pointed out by many professionals who are still struggling to recruit suitable staff. And that’s not all: some hospital caregivers also consider themselves forgotten by this great plan, while others criticize the fact that the method of financing the hospital, with activity-based pricing, is not cause. “Despite the Ségur, we are in a hospital disaster”added Dr. Jehane Fadlallah, doctor at Saint-Louis Hospital in Paris, on BFMTV.
Because “the flash mission” launched by Emmanuel Macron does not convince
Faced with these difficulties, Emmanuel Macron tried a new approach. The Head of State announced, Tuesday, May 31, the launch of a “flash mission” “one month on unscheduled care”before starting a round table with “all health actors [urgentistes, infirmiers, médecins généralistes, administration] access to urgent and unscheduled care”. But the approach did not convince.
Opponents see it primarily as a ploy to “postpone the decisions after the legislative elections” of June 12 and 19, when the health system is already “in a disaster”denounced the emergency doctor Christophe Prudhomme, of the CGT-Santé, Monday on RFI. “We expect a particularly difficult month of July and a horrible month of August” and “this flash mission is a bit of an insult to us”, even estimated Pierre Schwob-Tellier, of the Inter-Urgences collective, during a press conference on Thursday.
Some tracks of this “flash mission” are particularly worrying, such as the obligation to call 15 to filter access to emergencies, implemented in Cherbourg or Bordeaux. A scenario “unplayable” for Patrick Pelloux, president of the Association of Emergency Physicians of France (Amuf), who predicts an explosion of calls to Samu “already overwhelmed”. With a risk of loss of chance for the patients, that is to say a direct risk for their life.