A strong symbolic gesture, intended to challenge. All the heads of the emergency reception services in the Vaucluse department left their positions on Monday July 11. In Avignon, Carpentras, Orange, Apt, Cavaillon, Vaison-la-Romaine, Valréas, the seven managers continue their emergency work but have collectively resigned from their administrative functions. They intend to denounce “the health disaster towards which years of hardline budgetary policy have led the public hospital”, according to the terms of a letter addressed in particular to the Regional Health Agency (ARS). They worry about “the appalling immobility of the national administrations responsible for the current collapse of the health system”.
While many emergency services have found themselves in great difficulty in recent months – 120 were forced into degraded operation from the end of May, according to the SAMU-urgences union in France, i.e. nearly one in five – the 41 measures resulting of the « mission flash » led by emergency physician François Braun, now Minister of Health, are being deployed to the hospital to hold out for the summer. With in particular a revaluation of night work, an increase in the price of the consultation of city doctors for patients sent by the SAMU, or the possibility of resorting to regulation at the entrance to emergencies via 15.
But for the seven former pole chiefs, the government response does not seem “in no way compatible with the urgency of the situation and the tragedy announced”. “It is no longer possible for us to operate our services with the few remaining staff without compromising patient safety”they warn.
“We are really reaching a breaking point”
A second gesture came to mark the seriousness of the situation in the Vaucluse: a notice “unlimited strike” was filed with the department’s emergency physicians, by the CFDT Santé Sociaux, from Tuesday. He too with a first symbolic significance, since the doctors, in the event of a strike, are assigned to carry out their service. ” We’ve been alerting for months, but we want to do one more act before it explodesexplains Doctor Ludovic Sauvage, responsible for adult emergencies, in Avignon. We have a high summer activity, with tourism and the festival which has started, but our medical staff have never been so weak, it is unprecedented, we are really reaching a breaking point. »
In the Vaucluse as in many territories, the heart of the problem lies in the shortage of emergency physicians, which has increased from year to year. In the services of the hospital centers surrounding Avignon, 30% to 60% of vacancies are reached – partly filled by the Interim. The vicious circle is the same as elsewhere: emergencies are gradually emptying of their incumbents, increasing the workload of those who remain and annihilating any service or team life, which generates new beginnings… Even in Avignon, the situation is tense as ever, with six vacancies in a team of around thirty doctors, and nearly 25% of the workforce on leave, mainly for maternity leave.
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