“We are asking for beds and arms! A real policy, not one of destruction!” While the new Prime Minister Michel Barnier devoted his first trip to health, visiting Necker hospital SATURDAYanger is brewing in many French hospitals. In Nantes, an inter-union demonstration is due to start on Saturday, after a summer deemed “catastrophic” by six unions who decided to speak with one voice on Monday.
“The resigning minister Valletoux said that it was better this summer, while we are witnessing a complete disintegration of the health service, deplores Jérémy Beurel, deputy general secretary of FO at the Nantes University Hospital. We have reached 350 closed beds in total at the Nantes University Hospital, patients have waited dozens of hours on a stretcher, there have been several deaths [un chiffre démenti par la direction du CHU, ndlr]…Is this really acceptable?”
Around fifty hospitals under pressure
In the region, the night closure of the Ancenis emergency room but also the difficulties that continue in Laval (Mayenne) seem to have overheated the CHU. But as every summer for several years, problematic situations have been recorded elsewhere in France. In Brest, a “wall of shame” was for example imagined by caregivers, denouncing excessive waiting times that elderly patients had to face. In total, the emergency rooms of “around fifty” French hospitals were considered “under pressure” due to a lack of staff. And according to the figures of According to the French Hospital Federation (FHF), 39% of public hospitals have experienced a worsening situation compared to last summer.
“It’s exploding in the emergency room, but it’s just a showcase: behind it, we have all the other services that are also exploding,” continues Jérémy Beurel. As in geriatrics or pediatrics, always according to the opinion of the Nantes caregivers. “At the university hospital, there are no longer enough beds in child psychiatry, which means that children find themselves among adults, they have no place there, illustrates Antoinette Durand, for Sud. Others are sent home due to lack of space.”
Retaining caregivers
According to these caregivers, the situation in public hospitals has deteriorated further since Covid, when the crisis broke out into the open. “There is an increase in demand, with serious pathologies on the rise, while on the other hand, the supply of care is decreasing, with a deficit in establishments that is widening,” notes Gilles Latournerie, from the CFTC Santé sociaux.
For them, in addition to freeing up resources, it is around the attractiveness of the profession and the loyalty of staff that solutions must be found quickly, while 1,500 intern positions have been eliminated. “The number of places in medical-social training is increasing, but students still have to complete it and stay in the profession,” continues Gilles Latournerie. There is a very high turnover, so much so that in nursing homes in the middle of the night, there is sometimes no permanent staff to look after the residents. It is inhumane.”
Caregivers are finally worried about delisting of some general practitioners. “The risk is a two-speed health system,” warns the CGT. “That’s why users must fight with us rather than watch the big top collapse.” According to the French Hospital Federation, public hospitals would need “an additional 2.4 billion euros by 2024” to be able to fulfill their public service missions.