“In March 2020, Macron said that we were all heroes. Today I can tell you that the heroes are exhausted, with the feeling of being discredited. » Like Jean-Luc Landas, former anesthetist and member of the national coordination of hospital defense committeesthe CGT union decided to bang its fist on the table to denounce the “worrying” situation of the Nantes University Hospital. Recipient of numerous “alarming” testimonies from caregivers, the union has just sent a report to the public prosecutor in which it points to a “lengthening of the time frames for taking care of patients” and an “additional deterioration in working conditions” Staff. In question: the lack of manpower observed in all the services, in particular in psychiatry, gerontology, cardiology and in the Emergency room. “Absenteeism has worsened considerably over the past year, exceeding 12% in the first half of 2022. Resignations have jumped by 30% in one year. And as the establishment no longer manages to recruit, for lack of candidates, beds are closed. At the maternity ward, we even refuse registrations, ”deplores Olivier Terrien, CGT general secretary of the Nantes University Hospital.
“They say stop and get out”
The union recounts the requests for layoff of “young emergency physicians after only three years of training”, the departures to the private sector of “experienced doctors tired of having to deprogram interventions” or those caregivers who, after having responded present during the health crisis , have decided to “change jobs”. “We have mistreated them so much in recent years that they say stop and get out,” analyzes Jean-Luc Landas. If the observation is “not specific to the CHU of Nantes”, the situation would be accentuated locally by the “research for economy” used to “finance the new hospital” planned for 2027 on the island of Nantes, estimates the CGT.
The union also evokes the distress of the staff who remained in post. “The fatigue, the violence of certain patients, we are used to it. But what is hardest is the feeling of not succeeding in fulfilling our mission”, testifies Béatrice, nurse in psychiatry, service where the number of suicides of patients within the units would have increased significantly due to a “lack of supervision” linked to understaffing . “We talked a lot about Orpea but what is happening within the CHU is also unacceptable. We do machining. It’s institutional mistreatment,” adds Gilles, a gerontology caregiver. Another example cited: “when the operating times go from 3 months to 8 months of waiting in pediatric cardiac surgery, it’s a loss of chance for the child”, adds Olivier Terrien.
Fearing “human tragedies”, the CGT is now asking for “urgent measures” from the State. Among which the tenure of contract agents, salary increases and an ambitious training plan. “The profession must become attractive again. Without that, no one will want to come and we will not get out of it, ”considers the representative of the national coordination of hospital defense committees.
Solicited by 20 minutesthe Nantes University Hospital has not yet responded.