2023-04-18 16:35:00
How do you recognize a young emergency doctor in a Parisian bistro? Maybe the number of coffees she swallows. That morning, Olivia Fraigneau chained them – doubles, tight. Not the first of the day and probably not the last for the one who took the head of the National Intersyndicale of Interns (Isni) last September, after having chaired the Association of Young Emergency Physicians for two years. It must be said that the first months of his mandate saw a succession of controversial laws against which the 28-year-old intern deployed all his energy.
Starting with the Rist law, an article of which provides direct access for patients to certain paramedical professions. “ISNI has always been in favor of delegating tasks to facilitate access to care for the population, but an APN (advanced practice nurse) will never replace a general practitioner”, hammers Olivia Fraigneau. As for the cap on temporary medical work in the hospital, another “flagship” measure that came into effect at the beginning of April, the young emergency doctor constantly warned of the risk of overload for interns, often used as “adjustment variables”.
Up to 80 hours of work per week
Because it is them first and foremost that the president of Isni puts all her energy into protecting. “70% of interns suffer from pathological anxiety, and they commit suicide three times more than young people of the same age”, she recalls. Pressure from the hierarchy, moral or even sexual harassment, extended hours… Legally, the working time of interns should not exceed 48 hours per week. “In reality, we often exceed 60, 70, even 80 hours”, testifies Olivia Fraigneau.
To put an end to these excesses, Isni and other unions assigned the 28 university hospitals in France last fall. In vain. “As long as the hospitals will not have set up an hourly count, we will not let go », promises Olivia Fraigneau, whose organization is calling for a strike on April 28, to demand better working conditions. “From now on, it will be zero tolerance. Hospitals that break the law will go to court. Fear must change sides. »
First doctor in his family
Punch phrases and submachine gun flow: Olivia Fraigneau embodies a trade unionism that is both offensive and joyful – she laughs a lot, including at herself. “And to say that she did not feel capable of taking the head of Isni”, underlines his predecessor and friend, Gaëtan Casanova. He knew she was cut out for the job. “She has real deep thinking and understands everything very quickly, it’s almost complexing, he greets, admiring his determination. She left home at 18, worked in a fairground restaurant during her studies, recovered from a burnout… What she has, she fought to get . »
If Olivia Fraigneau is the first doctor in her family, her spirit of revolt has been transmitted to her. “Since my great-grandfather, all the men in the family have been union members. I believe that my father was more proud of my election as head of Isni than of the validation of my thesis. ironically the young woman, who grew up between Normandy and the South-West of France.
The fourth year of internship, “one year too many”
His first victory against « l’injustice », she won it at age 12, as an elected member of her college’s board of directors. In war against too heavy satchels, she will obtain closed lockers to lighten her comrades. “I have always wanted to defend the widow and the oppressed, she laughs. When I realized that my voice could carry, I decided to put my shyness aside to use it. »
Emergency medicine has imposed itself on this hyperactive, who gets bored quickly and does not like routine. His pugnacity, however, will not have been enough to make the government back down on the addition, from the start of the next school year, of a fourth year of internship for future general practitioners.. “One more year is always one year too many, and a danger to the lives of students”, she is indignant again.
It is also detrimental to the attractiveness of the profession, she says. “Right now, not three days go by without me receiving an email from a young person who wants to stop boarding school.. Personally, if I had had a plan B, I would probably have stopped. » To do what ? “A lawyer maybe. » The desire to defend those who need it, again and again…
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His compass: the independence of his grandmother
Her name was Monique, but Olivia Fraigneau called her “Mimi”. “She was my grandmother and the most extraordinary woman in the world”, smiles the intern, who visited him regularly in his house near Tarbes, until his recent death, at 83 years old.
“She had the courage to divorce an unfaithful husband at a time when it was very frowned upon; without a diploma, she trained late in sewing, while raising her two daughters alone, both of whom left to study in the big city. All the values that are dear to me, independence, the importance of fighting for one’s rights, frankness, loyalty to others and to oneself, it was she who transmitted them to me directly or indirectly because she embodied them. »
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