France: hospital emergency services suffering despite the "flash" plan
Nurses in the emergency department of the Delafontaine hospital in Saint-Denis, north of Paris, on January 12 (Illustration image).
AP - Michel Euler
Text by: RFI Follow
3 mins
In France, the emergency crisis continues.
A study by the SAMU-Urgences de France union reveals that emergency room visits increased by 12% in July.
A “flash mission” of around forty measures has been launched by the government to unclog emergency rooms during the summer.
But for the nursing staff, they are insufficient.
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At the beginning of July, to unclog hospital emergency services, the government had validated the proposals of the new Minister of Health François Braun.
To spend the summer,
allow health professionals to take vacations
and avoid hospital service closures as much as possible, a "flash plan" of 41 temporary measures were adopted in early July by the government, such as the increase in wages for working hours. at night to reinforce the role of SAMU.
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But the emergency services, the mobile emergency and resuscitation services (Smur) and the 15 "are in great difficulty operating", alerted the president of the association Samu-Urgences France (SUdF) at the end of the week. , successor to François Braun at the head of this organization.
According to the survey, 95% of emergency services say they encounter “significant problems with the availability of beds”, 90% difficulties with medical human resources and 89% lack of non-medical human resources”.
In fact, at the CHU d'Angers, the situation is still critical.
In July, the hospital center received an average of 650 calls per day.
A 20% increase compared to previous months.
For Dominique Savary, emergency physician at the CHU d'Angers and member of the SAMU Urgences de France union, additional resources are needed, as he explains at the microphone of
Antoine Gallenne
, of the Society service.
The flash mission recommended “regulating admissions”, either with “paramedical triage at the entrance” to emergencies, or by “systematic prior medical regulation” by the Samu telephone switchboard.
But, points out Dominique Savary, in Maine-et-Loire, this filtering was not done for lack of means.
“
In my department of Maine-et-Loire, we couldn't do it, our Samu is already so stressed that we wouldn't be able to regulate the calls of people who come to the emergency room
.
»
According to this doctor, the flash mission is interesting but it comes too late.
“
We cannot change things on June 30 for the coming summer, it should have been done in February or March.
We regret that she arrived very late.
»
For Agnès Ricard-Hibon, head of the SAMU 95 service in the Paris region, this flash mission is only a step.
“
It was absolutely urgent to put in place immediately, because the emergency services were in great difficulty this summer.
But they are not sufficient, these are measures for the summer but which must be pursued through consultation and this is only the first stone, I would say.
»
Among these measures: better remuneration for night work in the hospital, a financial incentive for city doctors who accept emergency appointments, the reinstatement of voluntary retired doctors, etc.
“These levers make it possible to support new cooperation between professionals (...);
to recognize the additional commitment of professionals to increase the care time available;
to support the arduous nature of night work, particularly in hospitals,” declared François Braun in mid-July.
An evaluation of the measures of this flash mission will be made at the end of September to decide whether they will be extended after the summer.
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