There were 68 in May, a hundred in June and now 218: the emergency services on strike continue to increase in France, Friday, August 16, after several months of mobilization and despite the release of a budget of 70 million. euros before the summer to try to appease the health staff. The Ministry of Health announced Wednesday, for its part, to have identified 195 on strike.
"The mobilization is far from tarnishing with the summer despite what could have been hoped by the government: in the space of a month and a half, we doubled the number of services on strike," says Orianne Plumet, vice President of the Collectif Inter-Urgences (CIU) - a collective composed of emergency paramedics who says "alert on the endangering of patients and carers" - contacted by France 24.
The government had announced, on June 14, an envelope of 15 million euros to "allow emergency services in tension" to "strengthen their paramedical staff during the summer and thus maintain a maximum of open beds ". The remaining 55 million euros of the envelope were also devoted to the generalization and revaluation of a premium of 100 euros net monthly, paid in July "to all emergency service professionals (excluding doctors) ", according to the Ministry of Health.
But it is estimated by the CIU that these ads were not enough. "Many colleagues have not seen reinforcements arrive in their service," says Orianne Plumet. "Very few positions have been created to mitigate the understaffing this summer, which has reinforced the sense of insecurity that can be experienced by the emergency department on a daily basis, and even more so in the summer when the emergency downstream (hospital beds after the emergency, Editor's note) close and patients find themselves spending several days on stretchers. "
"There will not be two simultaneous absolute emergencies"
It is true that patients on stretchers have been chronicling this summer. A 70-year-old patient spent more than six days on a stretcher at the Saint-Quentin Hospital Center (Aisne). Another 72-year-old spent 5 days at the hospital without a room at the University Hospital of Saint-Étienne (Loire). Added to this are the summer closures of beds or "flows" - the number of patients received daily in the emergency services - which increase the summer in hospitals in the south of France because of holidaymakers.
The increase in the number of emergency services on strike can also have a structural cause, as explains Orianne Plumet: "The coordination group of CIU has made contact with more and more emergency services this summer . This helped to answer the questions and reassure the teams on how a strike is going, since finally the majority of teams - often young - have never made a social movement.
The claims of the movement seem, for their part, far from being satisfied in the state. The CIU calls for an improvement in the working conditions of emergency personnel by "the recruitment of 10,000 full-time equivalents throughout the territory", with a distribution of new staff according to local needs. This situation has been partly resolved locally, as for Paris hospitals where the APHP is expected to create 230 posts in the emergency services.
"We are also asking for the closure of downstream beds and the maintenance of SMUR teams (mobile emergency and resuscitation structures mobilized for emergency interventions or inter-hospital transport, Editor's note)," Orianne said. Plume. The recent example of the hospital of Lons-le-Saunier does not go in this direction, the direction of the establishment having decided to delete its second line of SMUR. Before that, it will be closed from 19 to 31 August, for lack of staff. "This means that during this period, there will not be two cases of simultaneous absolute urgency because there will be only one truck from Samu," says the vice president of CIU.
"New measures in September" announced by Agnès Buzyn
The last claim brought by the movement consists of a salary increase of up to € 300 net per month. The Ministry of Health partially acceded to this request by paying in July a bonus of € 100 net monthly to staff working in the emergency services. "But it's a real revaluation we ask, not just a premium that is not sustainable," nuance Orianne Plumet.
Perhaps answers will be made to these claims in the report "Meslier-Carli", requested by the Ministry of Health and whose publication, expected in November, could lead to a reorganization of emergency services. The deputy (LREM) Thomas Meslier, unsuccessfully contacted by France 24, and the head of the Samu de Paris, Professor Pierre Carli, have been hearing from the beginning of the summer health professionals from all walks of life in order to identify "concrete proposals refoundation of emergency services ".
The Minister of Health, however, does not intend to wait until November to make announcements. On Wednesday, the ministry explained that Agnès Buzyn "will announce new measures from the first recommendations" of the report at the beginning of the school year.At the same time, the Collectif Inter-Urgences will invite to its general assembly services aspiring to better working conditions. - like the psychiatric services or the Ehpad - to find points of convergence.