“You could say that the captain leaves the ship after having scuttled it”, reacts Friday, June 17 on franceinfo Olivier Cammas, head of the Union Syndicale CGT de l’Assistance Publique (Usap-CGT) within the AP-HP after the announcement of Martin Hirsch who has decided to leave his post at the management of the Public Assistance-Hospitals of Paris. “Martin Hirsch was at the head of the AP-HP for eight years, so he is also one of the gravediggers of the public hospital through the reforms he has made”denounces the trade unionist.
franceinfo: Are you surprised by this departure?
Olivier Cammas: The directors pass and the public hospital passes away. We are not too surprised. This is the tenor of his letter. Martin Hirsch was at the head of the AP-HP for eight years, so he is also one of the gravediggers of the public hospital through the reforms he has made. He deregulated working time, he broke an important social model which was that of the AP-HP, he also implemented bed closures which were sorely lacking during the pandemic. I recall Martin Hirsch’s list of projects: the closure of the Bichat and Beaujon hospitals to form a single establishment with 400 beds and 1,000 fewer jobs. Concerning the Raymond-Poincaré hospital in Garches, it is the project to close a hospital of excellence for the disabled. It is the dismantling of the Hôtel-Dieu hospital in the heart of Paris.
“He applied the Macron government’s scrapping policy – which aims to slash the public hospital – and that of François Hollande before.”
Olivier Cammas, head of Usap-CGT within the AP-HPat franceinfo
What are the responsibilities of Martin Hirsch today in the situation of the public hospital?
They are huge. As a senior civil servant, he managed things that were unmanageable. He should have resigned three years ago now, when there was the hospital crisis and the social movements of the time. He didn’t cry out, he continued. He continued his policy of undermining and scuttling the AP-HP. One could say that the captain leaves the ship after having scuttled it.
“He prepared the breakup of the AP-HP and now he makes us believe that he did not have the means to exercise.”
Olivier Cammasat franceinfo
When Mr. Hirsch on France Inter says he is closing the Collegiate [hôpital La Collégiale, à Paris] because there would be no toilets in the rooms, because the hospital would not be in compliance, he is lying and we have denied via press release and video what he said. It closes public hospitals and geriatrics services when we have all heard the Orpea scandal when it happens in the private sector.
.@MartinHirsch about the temporary closure of the geriatric hospital of La Collégiale, in Paris. Staff representatives think it is final: “We have given ourselves until the end of June to see what is going on” #le79Inter pic.twitter.com/sGxNMwhhck
– France Inter (@franceinter) May 30, 2022
Martin Hirsch explains in his letter that he could not commit to building a hospital model different from what it was before the pandemic, do you think he tried to build a new model?
He entered into the economic management of the hospital and made it a hospital-business. When he massively grouped hospitals into large university hospitals by reducing costs and resources, by liquidating hospital workers, for example in departments dedicated to hygiene, it was detrimental during the pandemic. He did not develop the public service so we cannot say that he has another model. The model he advocates is the one he is doing and therefore it is breaking up the public hospital.