How to attract more carers to the hospital and in particular to night shifts? Visiting Rouen on Thursday, the Prime Minister made several announcements on the remuneration of night work and guards as the hospital faces a shortage of staff. One billion euros in salary increases will be released per year for the benefit of caregivers in the hospital, in particular for night work and on Sundays. The announcement of this envelope comes after a summer where the hospital and in particular the emergencies were on the razor’s edge.
Doctors’ unions have been demanding for several months the outcome of negotiations announced by Emmanuel Macron, who had promised, at the beginning of January, to“open the construction site of the remuneration of night work” and some “permanence” care. Here is what to remember from Elisabeth Borne’s plan.
Night and weekend work upgraded
For Elisabeth Borne, “the challenge”is to recognize these “specific constraints that doctors have” and caregivers at the hospital: “night work, Sundays and public holidays”. Thus, for night work, caregivers will see their salary increased by 25%. At present, they benefit from a temporary measure put in place by former Minister Braun of one euro per hour. This additional remuneration will therefore no longer be a flat rate, but a percentage of their salary. “For a mid-career nurse, this represents an additional 300 euros per month” said Elisabeth Borne. Sunday work and public holidays will be valued via a 20% increase in the lump sum indemnity.
The increase in the permanent care allowance
The Prime Minister’s announcements also concern the guards. The device for the moment transitional which provides for a 50% increase in the duty allowance will be made permanent for doctors. According to Matignon, this represents 560 euros per month for a mid-career practitioner who would perform four shifts per month. Finally, the level of public penalties will be aligned with that of the private sector, which is the best bidder.
Of the 1.1 billion euros of the overall cost, 600 million correspond to revaluations already announced, but which are “perpetuated” and 500 million relate to new measures, which will be included in the Social Security financing bill (PLFSS) 2024, said Matignon.
At the same time, the Prime Minister also indicated that patients will soon be able to receive antibiotics to treat angina and cystitis without going through the doctor’s box.
An advance welcomed by the unions, which also point to “unworthy” working conditions
These announcements are hailed as a step forward by several healthcare unionsbut some believe that the amounts announced are not sufficient, and above all that we must tackle the working conditions of caregivers.
Marc Noizet, president of Samu-Urgences de France, estimated on franceinfo this Wednesday that the announced revaluations, of “significant increases”, “come at the right time”. But he judges them “not sufficient” to settle all the ills of the hospital. “The hospital also needs to evolve in its managerial methods, its recruitment methods and the quality of life of health professionals at work”he points.
“There is a real salary problem”, estimated for his part Thierry Amouroux, spokesperson for the National Union of Nursing Professionals (SNPI), also on franceinfo Thursday evening. “The nurse in France is underpaid compared to other countries. If you go to Belgium it’s more 30%, if you go to Switzerland, the nursing salary is doubled.” But for him, the positions are also vacant because of the working conditions: “The workload is unworthy”, he explains. “The international standards are 6 to 8 patients per nurse. In France, we are twice that”, he laments.
He believes that Elisabeth Borne’s announcements are not going “fundamentally change” things with “a few tens of euros more”. “The Real Problem” According to him, these are “hellish conditions” where caregivers work. “It must be understood that the core nursing profession is all that is listening, support, helping relationship, decoding of medical discourse on treatment, pathology, health education, therapeutic education .” These missions, the nursest “less and less time to do it” because they have to “to chain technical acts of care, injections, infusions, dressings, to invoice them when we enter them into the computer”. “That’s not the core business”storm Thierry Amouroux. “That’s not what patients expect. They really want to be taken care of and that’s invisible work for the administration.”
He also sees “a loss of meaning” of career. “We have a wonderful job, we are made to work in conditions so unworthy in France that it disgusts the caregivers”, he recalls. “And above all, it increases mortality” patients. “Behind all this, there are deaths that could be avoided”, he regrets.