Doctor Asmaa Khaled is an anesthesiologist and works as a temporary worker. Due to the lack of hospital staff, his mailbox is overflowing with offers of replacements in hospitals all over the territory.
On this offer, the 24 hours of call duty in the operating theater are paid €1,300 gross. This is in one day more than half of what Asmaa could earn in a month in the hospital when she was employed.
“My net pay at the time was 2,235 euros. When I look back at those numbers, I find it hard to understand why I put all this on myself. It’s ridiculous, it’s really humiliating pay.” she confides.
Asmaa assumes her choice perfectly. If she prefers the interim, it is also, she says, for reasons of personal organization.
The law of supply and demand
But others would only see the financial advantage. Few doctors talk about it openly, but we were able to talk to a young emergency doctor who graduated two years ago. It recognizes that temporary work is a market and assumes to take advantage of supply and demand.
I like taking care of patients, I love my job, but for €3,000 a month it’s not possible.
A temporary doctorat the eye of 8 p.m.
“Roughly per month, working full time, it’s around €9,000 per month or so. A salary at the start of my career, I don’t practice it but I see my colleagues more or less, they are about close to 3000 € per month, I’m not interested.” assures this interim emergency doctor who wishes to remain anonymous.
Income soon limited
In France, there would be around 15,000 temporary doctors. With in some cases excesses that are expensive for the public hospital. This is what this Senate report from February 2021 points out:
“In 2013, the total cost for the public hospital was around 500 million euros per year (…) increased in 2018 to 1.4 billion euros.”
To better regulate the use of temporary doctors, the State wants to cap these remunerations. Less than 50€ gross per hour maximum.
A measure welcomed by some hospital directors who, despite the needs in medical deserts in particular, do not endorse such remuneration.
“I have already paid temporary workers 3,500 bales a day. They are paid every day by our public money, I find it scandalous when they are paid and trained by our public money.”
That they don’t do medicine, or not in France, medicine in the United States but not here.
A hospital directorat the eye of 8 p.m.
This is not the opinion of all hospital directors. With this new ceiling, some fear that they will no longer be able to recruit and are already seeking to circumvent the law.
In an e-mail that we obtained, a service manager offers a replacement doctor to keep his advantageous salary. This is what he wrote to her: “in order to maintain your interventions (…) I would like to offer you a status of contractual practitioner based on the amount you receive today. The time quota would be variable and smoothed over the duration (…) of three months three years if you wish.
Contacted, the management of this hospital affirms that this email is old and that the law will be well applied. However, according to our information, this exchange took place a few days ago.
For its part, the union of substitute doctors justifies the use of temporary workers in the face of the shortage of nursing staff and recalls that the latter pay an average of 20% of charges and travel at their own expense when they are on mission.
Among our sources:
Article R6146-4 of the Public Health Code
Report by Senator Alain Millon