“We are going straight into the wall …” Opponents of the new CHU mobilized for two days

They braved the cold to meet at 8:30 a.m. on Boulevard Gustave-Roch, on the island of Nantes, a few hundred meters from the median where Prime Minister Jean Castex is to lay the first stone of the new CHU around 12:30 p.m. A hundred people have been demonstrating since Friday morning, at the call of several unions, to denounce the new hospital project. “It is extremely important for us to be present, insists Patrica, hospital agent. This new CHU will be accompanied by bed closures [
environ 65 de moins par rapport à aujourd’hui] as the population continues to grow. It is absurd. We’re going straight into the wall. »

Olivier Terrien, CGT union representative at the CHU, does not say anything else. “All ambulatory is an illusion. What already saturates hospitals today is not bobology, it is patients waiting for a bed. The elimination of places in obstetrics and surgery will be particularly detrimental. We are going to refer patients to the private sector where treatment will cost more. It is not the public hospital that we want tomorrow. »

The project is already well advanced and obviously does not arouse much popular rejection. But Louis, retired, keeps hope to see him stop. ” Do not despair. Even when the work has started, it is never final. We saw it with Notre-Dame-des-Landes. I think that if there had been a consultation, the population would have expressed their opposition to the project. But the debate was never organised. »

Boycott and funeral march

The mobilization of opponents will continue on Saturday. The elected environmentalists, associations and a collective of caregivers will participate in a “funeral march” at 3 p.m. from Place Graslin. In addition to the reduction in the number of beds and the lack of hospital staff, they denounce a project deemed too expensive (1.2 billion euros), “too centralized and not easily accessible”, “which will not allow any future extension” and whose site presents a “risk of flooding”.

The senator and leader of the Nantes municipal opposition, Laurence Garnier (LR), will not parade in the street on Saturday but has chosen, for the same reasons, to boycott the ceremony surrounding the arrival of the Prime Minister this Friday. As for the CFDT, it decided to express its dissatisfaction in front of the headquarters of the regional health agency.

A petition calling for the suspension of the project for a new university hospital on the island of Nantes has gathered nearly 3,000 signatures a year after its launch.

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