The French public hospital is sinking into crisis.

At least 120 emergency services have been forced to limit their activity or are preparing for it, according to a list drawn up by the association Samu-Urgences de France (SUdF) that AFP obtained.

AP-HP hospitals are missing 1,400 nurses, the director general of the Ile-de-France hospital group, Martin Hirsch, also indicated on Monday May 30, while caregivers are increasing calls. help in the face of staff shortages.

"We, at the AP-HP compared to other hospitals, our problem is with the nurses (...) We have 1,000 fewer than a year ago at the same time, we had planned to create 400 additional positions, we could not create them, so we are missing 1,400 nurses compared to what we would like to have”, explained Martin Hirsch on France Inter radio.

"Some have changed jobs, some have gone into the private sector, some have gone to the provinces, some have not come to work after graduating last summer. (…) and there are many who use this soft drug of the interim, which puts us in an absolutely terrible situation”, he added.

"The Hippocratic oath is flouted every day"

Saturday, in an article entitled "SOS Hôpital public: our revelations on the salaries of shame" and published by Paris Match, doctors, nurses, physiotherapists and nursing assistants working at the Saint-Louis hospital in Paris reveal their worksheets. pays to warn about a system that is out of breath and that is struggling more and more to attract.

“We are leaving our right of reserve because the Hippocratic oath is flouted every day”, affirms on France 24, Jehane Fadlallah, doctor at Saint-Louis hospital.

At the AP-HP, 15% of beds remain closed on average, for lack of caregivers, underlined Martin Hirsch on France Inter, while hospitals across France warn of the lack of staff for this summer in the services of emergency room.

For example, the cutting-edge immunology service in which Jehane Fadlallah works is itself threatened with closure, due to lack of personnel and resources.

"We decided to publicize this because emergencies have been crying out for help for years," she continues, explaining that her service was forced to close 9 beds out of 23, or a third of its capacity.

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"The Covid-19 pandemic has accelerated this mechanism, but it pre-existed."

- Jehane Fadlallah, at France 24.

Same cry of despair in the Oise where several dozen elected officials, caregivers and residents of Senlis demonstrated on Saturday to demand the reopening of emergencies, closed since December due to a shortage of doctors.

"Since December 13, the emergency department and the Smur have been closed in Senlis, a closure which had been announced to us as temporary" but "which has been extended for five months. We are asking the ARS (Regional Health Agency) to to keep its promises", explained to AFP the president of the defense committee of the hospital of Senlis (CDDHS), Véronique Pruvost-Bitar. 

Since the merger of Senlis hospital and Creil hospital in 2012, Senlis has already lost eight medical and surgical specialty services, she laments.

Raising wages and securing the precarious

For Jehane Fadlallah, the salary increase is essential for the survival of the public hospital.

The latter has completed 16 years of study, obtained two doctorates, specialized in rare cancerous blood diseases, and works more than 50 hours a week.

His salary ?

Less than 3,500 euros net per month (a nurse from the public hospital will receive 1,700 euros net per month).

“It is a minority element of our vocation, we are not asking anyone to thank us for having made this choice, declares Jehane Fadlallah, but it is a response to Olivier Véran who said that the hospital was a question of organization and not means, but that is false".

"We have one of the best health systems in the world. We are extremely well trained and we try to maintain the quality of care as best we can... But we can no longer do this to the detriment of our mental and physical health."

- Jehane Fadlallah at France 24.

The other key to attracting staff, she says, is the tenure of precarious caregivers.

Precarious caregivers of which she is a part, she who is on CDD (fixed-term contract).

"A CDD is normally destined to last 12 to 18 months, but it is clear that it lasts, it is a situation that has become permanent", she denounces, specifying that these precarious contracts represent 41% of the AP-HP payroll.

"Before, when you graduated, you weren't allowed to set up as a temporary worker. Temporary workers in health professions where there is no unemployment (...), that means 'I do the choice to work when I want, when I can, paid three times more than the others'", commented Martin Hirsch, who described the temporary workers as "mercenaries".

Health is one of the three "emergencies" which the government must tackle, alongside the climate and purchasing power, Prime Minister Élisabeth Borne said on Friday, at the end of a region in Matignon with her government. .

Faced with the shortage of personnel in hospitals, Elisabeth Borne assured, at the end of this meeting, that she had asked the "ministers concerned" to "make proposals very quickly to take effective measures for the summer".

With AFP

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