Hospitals have been sounding the alarm bells since this summer: hospitals are now facing a severe shortage of personnel. "We have just carried out a probe in 16 CHUs and indeed, if we extrapolate the data, we see an increase of nearly a third of vacant positions in paramedics compared to the fall of 2019", reported Olivier Véran in an interview with

Liberation on

Wednesday. The Minister of Health admitted that the situation was "complicated", but refused "fatalism". He ensures that he is aware "that the most serious current problem" is "the degraded working conditions because of understaffing".

"A certain number of units in hospitals are forced to close temporarily, or to reduce the wing, for lack of caregivers, especially for lack of being able to recruit them", he adds.

“It varies from one hospital to another, but it's a lot.

It is about the double of closed beds compared to the same time two years ago, indicated Rémi Salomon, president of the medical commission of the Hospitals of Paris on RTL.

Nursing students quit before graduation

Olivier Véran also notes an increase in absenteeism "of a little less than one point over the same period for non-medical personnel", as well as resignations, but "in moderate proportions".

In addition, between 2018 and 2021, a little more than a thousand nursing students in training "resigned before the end of their studies" and "an investigation will be launched" so that we "understand the reasons".

The Hospital Federation of France (FHF) had reported, on October 20, “an absenteeism rate of around 10%” and “2 to 5% of vacant nursing posts” within hospitals and public medico-social establishments.

20% of beds closed according to the Scientific Council

In its opinion of October 5, the Scientific Council reported "a significant percentage of closed beds, amounted to around 20%" despite an "already significant and increasing use of overtime and temporary work".

These data collected "from the large hospital structures of the country in the largest French regions" also highlight "a large number of vacant jobs, with in particular 5 professions in tension": nurses, operating room nurses, nurse anesthetists, manipulators. radiology and physiotherapists.

At the end of September, a study by the Drees indicated that at the end of December 2020 hospitals recorded 5,700 more closed full hospital beds than at the end of December 2019.

Olivier Véran disputes the figures

“The figure of 20%, I would tend, like that, to dispute it.

And in any case, because I love science deeply and before speaking, I make sure not to tell anything.

I asked to have as exhaustive a study as possible on the state of closure, ”commented Olivier Véran on Wednesday afternoon, during a hearing in the National Assembly on the finance bill for 2022.

“For the moment, the only figure I have is on a very fragmented sample of 16 CHUs.

With all the biases that we can recognize, on 16 CHU, the last data that came back to me is 5% of medicine beds temporarily closed.

We would therefore be quite far from 20% of the general hospital stock ”, he added.

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