France: hospital staff demonstrate in around fifty cities

Hospital staff mobilized everywhere in France and in particular in front of the Ministry of Health in Paris, on June 7, 2022 © BENOIT TESSIER / REUTERS

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In the midst of an emergency crisis and a few days before the legislative elections, hospital staff mobilized little on Tuesday to demand salary and staff increases in around fifty cities.

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For this first day of action of Macron's second five-year term, nine unions and groups of caregivers organized rallies in at least fifty cities.

But the mobilization did not fill up.

In Paris, between 200 and 300 demonstrators gathered in front of the Ministry of Health at the start of the afternoon, including Corinne Panot, a nursing assistant who came to remind us that "

 beyond salary increases, it is

above all

the human resources

we need

 ".

This afternoon in front of the Ministry @Sante_Gouv with the colleagues of CH Peronne who came in force 👊


The dead in the hospital, the death of the hospital is enough #HostoKo #1Lit1Vie #SauvonsLHopital #SoignantsEnColere pic.twitter.com/yDhgE1vUwD

– Inter-Urgences (@InterUrg) June 7, 2022

There were about as many of them in Toulouse, where Hélène Isus, a nurse at the CHU, explained that she wanted to "

 do [her] job correctly, not having to choose between patients 

".

Same crowds in Grenoble and Nantes, where child psychiatry nurse Ronan Tréguer was exasperated: “ 

It's been a mess for years and we're fed up.

Our working conditions are deplorable and the patients are suffering

 ”.

In Bordeaux, among the few hundred gathered

in front of the CHU

at midday, Lise, an operating theater nurse, said she was tired of having to "

 always do more with less time and less staff 

".

In Marseille, the unions and collectives of caregivers expressed their anger at the Assistance Publique des Hôpitaux de Marseille (APHM):

They should understand that when we say we're fed up and need more staff, it's not because we're lazy and want to twiddle our thumbs.

It's because we know our job and we want to do it.

We are health professionals.

And if we say that we are not enough, it is that we are not enough.

Mobilization for the hospital in Marseille

Yoram Melloul

Unions want negotiations

Emergency services are particularly in turmoil: for lack of caregivers, at least 120 services have been forced to limit their activity or are preparing for it, according to a count at the end of May from the Samu-Urgences de France association.

By the end of June, the president of Samu-Urgences de France François Braun must submit the conclusions of a mission to the Head of State, who promised in an interview with the regional press on Friday "

 emergency decisions as soon as July

 ”.

The objective “

 is to bring up all the good answers that can be put in place, as of this summer

 ”, Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne said on France Bleu on Tuesday.

The method does not convince Laurent Berger, the secretary general of the CFDT, the first French trade union: he judges in a forum in Liberation that "

 the time for investigations has passed

 " and calls for "

 urgent negotiations on the organization of work

 " for to set up a hospital "

 on the verge of knockout

 ".

"

 We risk being in

a very, very problematic situation this summer

[...] I am very afraid that there will be tragedies

 ", alerted on RTL the head of emergencies at the Avicenne hospital in Bobigny, Frédéric Adnet .

Expected at the turn, François Braun assured last week that he did not intend to produce "

 an umpteenth report

 " but "to

 write the prescription 

" expected by the hospital, adding to have " 

already leads 

".

►To listen also: Guest France - Strike of nursing staff in France: "The solution is not only financial"

(With AFP)

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