Worn out by the Covid, disappointed by the “Ségur”, worried about the summer: nine unions and collectives were trying today to relaunch the social movement in the hospital.
In the midst of an emergency crisis and a few days before the legislative elections, hospital staff mobilized little on Tuesday to demand salary and staff increases, while the executive awaits the result of the “mission flash» commissioned by Emmanuel Macron. For this first day of action of the second Macron five-year term, nine unions and groups of caregivers organized rallies in at least fifty cities.
But the mobilization did not fill up, with in Paris between 200 and 300 demonstrators who found themselves in front of the Ministry of Health at the start of the afternoon. Including Corinne Panot, caregiver who came from Méricourt (Vosges) to remind us that “beyond salary increases, it is above all human resources that we need“. Maryse, nurse for 25 years at the Tenon hospital in Paris, denounces the working conditions “abominable» and the «tension permanente» experienced by caregivers. She calls for increases in wages but also in staff: “Twenty-five years ago, we were one nurse for eight patients. Today, it is one nurse for 12 to 15 patients. The flash mission? It’s total nonsense».
Read alsoShort of staff, the hospital on the verge of asphyxiation
There were about as many of them in Toulouse, where Hélène Isus, a nurse at the CHU, explained that she wanted “do (his) job properly, not have to choose between patients“. Same crowds in Grenoble and Nantes, where child psychiatry nurse Ronan Tréguer was exasperated: “It’s been a mess for years and we’re tired of it. Our working conditions are deplorable and patients suffer“. In Bordeaux, among the few hundred gathered in front of the CHU at midday, Lise, an operating room nurse, said she was tired of having to “always do more with less time and staff».
“Hard to stay motivated”
«There is a lot of professional fatigue, we are called back on our days off“, Underlined Noëlle, nursing assistant at the Rennes University Hospital, where a hundred people marched from the University Hospital to the regional health agency (ARS). In Clermont-Ferrand, there were only a few dozen in front of the CHU. “I love my job, but it’s hard to stay motivated because we can’t do it properly anymore“, lamented the nurse Nathalie Niort. It is in the emergency room that the fire is smoldering: for lack of caregivers, at least 120 services have been forced to limit their activity or are preparing for it, according to a count at the end of May from the Samu-Urgences de France association.
Its president, François Braun, must also submit the conclusions of the “mission flash” by the end of June to the Head of State, who promised in an interview with the regional press on Friday “emergency decisions from July“. The goal, “is to bring up all the good answers that can be put in place, starting this summer“, affirmed Tuesday on France Bleu the Prime Minister, Elisabeth Borne But for Marine Le Pen, “this measure has only one interest, it is to step over the legislative electionof June 12 and 19. The method does not convince either the secretary general of the CFDT, Laurent Berger, who judges in a forum in Liberation that “the time for investigations is over» and claims «urgent negotiations on the organization of work“to get a hospital back on its feet”on board the KO».
SEE ALSO – Demonstration of caregivers: “Interim aggravates tensions at the hospital», explains Julien Da Sois
The question of the reintegration of non-vaccinated caregivers was also one of the main demands expressed by the trade unions and the collectives of caregivers. Philippe Martinez, secretary general of the CGT, was present at the start of the mobilization and spoke on the issue: “This is a unique case in France. Never in France, we left people without any income. We must reintegrate them immediately and give them back everything they have lost for months and months.».
“Shaking the Taboos”
On the ground, time is running out:This summer, our hospital will be in the same state as during the Covid period. The public hospital will die“, denounced a representative of the CGT in front of the few hundred demonstrators massed in front of the Ministry of Health in Paris. Expected at the turn, François Braun assured last week that he did not intend to produce “yet another report” but good “write the prescription“expected by the hospital, adding to have”already some leads».
Some appear in a letter sent to the Minister of Health, Brigitte Bourguignon, the day of her appointment and published on the website of Samu-Urgences de France. They are sometimes consensual, such as the revaluation of night and weekend work, “very painful” but increased by only one euro per hour for nurses, which is “completely aberrant“, he underlines. Other ideas are worrying, such as the obligation to call 15 to filter access to emergencies, implemented in Cherbourg or Bordeaux. The option, however, has defenders in the majority, like the deputy of Charente Thomas Mesnier, also an emergency doctor, who deemed it necessary in the Sunday newspaper of “get back into crisis management mode to get through the summer», leaves at «recenter» ces services «on their real job, vital emergencies».
Read alsoMichaël Peyromaure: “The shortage of caregivers is likely to settle in the long term”
Eager to “shake taboos”the chosen one even pleads forSmur without doctors“, with only nurses in the ambulance to make up for the absence of practitioners in places, and suggests transforming into “daytime antennas” the emergency services that “we can no longer keep open” permanently. Proposals unlikely to appease the “bubble of discontent” observed by the general secretary of the CGT-Santé, Mireille Stivala. To increase the pressure, Patrick Pelloux also plans to “launch a strike movement in the emergency room before the summer”. The latter also spoke in front of the demonstrators in Paris to criticize the initiative of the mission “flashlaunched by the president: “The flash mission? Splash? Their objective is to test the number of structures that they will be able to close. They really want to break the public service and disgust ushe shouted.
SEE ALSO – Emmanuel Macron does not set a date for the reintegration of unvaccinated caregivers