With the blockage and strikes affecting several French refineries as part of the pension reform, the fuel shortage is affecting more and more service stations. At the national level, more than 14.30% of them would now be partially or totally affected, with a higher incidence in certain regions such as PACA or Occitanie. In this territory, health professionals are beginning to see difficulties in being able to fill their reservoir and ensure their home visits.
“We already have a lot of feedback indicating supply difficulties, with all the stress that this creates. The rounds are already very full, if in addition we have to spend two hours queuing at the pump to be told that there is no more gas, it is not possible. If we don’t see certain patients, they will end up in the emergency room, which is already overcrowded. If we go to them it’s not for nothing, they are fragile people and on whom it can have an immediate impact, “insists Carole Lamotte, the president of the Regional Union of Liberal Nurses Health Professionals of Occitanie.
This body launched this Wednesday a questionnaire to 15,000 professionals health in the region. “In five minutes, we had 125 responses which show real difficulties, particularly in Hérault and Haute-Garonne”, continues this official, who calls on the authorities to quickly deploy service stations reserved for health professionals.
Orders in some departments
A decision taken on Monday by the Gard prefecture, by publishing an order limiting the volume of fuel purchases but above all by targeting sixteen service stations intended to supply priority professions. Just like the Var prefecture on Tuesday, which set up priority queues at five service stations.
“Me, yesterday, at 5 am, I went to three gas stations to get fuel and I started my rounds an hour late. My partner is anxious and wonders how he will do this weekend. We ensure continuity of care, we go to the most fragile, we need our vehicles. We have already been faced with shortages in October, the State must anticipate this kind of thing, we would not imagine that the Samu helicopter could no longer fly for lack of fuel”, clashes Jean-Francois Bouscarainliberal nurse in Valergues, in the Hérault, also regional president of the National Federation of Nurses.
The latter asks the State to unblock the situation by taking immediate measures for access to pumps for health professionals, but also a more global reflection on these questions to anticipate similar situations in the future.