Cis a completely imbecile law!” The mayor of Carpentras Serge Andrieu and chairman of the hospital supervisory board, does not go by the back of the spoon when it comes to addressing the painful question of the Rist law, which would be put in place on April 3 and which would therefore threaten the emergency services of Carpentras and its maternity.
A threat recounted in a letter by the heads of departments of the hospital and the office of the establishment medical commission and sent to elected officials, senators, prefects and also to the steering bodies of the health system (see our edition of Saturday 4 March). A letter that had the effect of a bomb since it would announce the closure of the emergency department at night, as at Cavaillon hospital, and perhaps even permanently. The maternity service might also be threatened.
“The Avignon hospital has eight hospital doctors in its emergencies; in Carpentras we don’t have enough. The management therefore resorts to temporary workers. By threatening these temporary workers to reduce their salary (they would increase to €1,170 for 24 hours, editor’s note), and by not having valued our hospital practitioners as we should have done for a long time, we are threatening a closing service. And with that the risk of a general decline in activity for the hospital. This will have an impact on its staff, their families — it is the city’s largest employer — and of course on the patients.“, comments the mayor. “We are moving towards a two-speed medicine, with English or American management where those who cannot afford clinical costs will not be able to be treated”.
He addresses another problem, that of the working conditions of firefighters if the emergency room closed at night or even permanently: “they will not be able to respond to all the requests whether to transport patients from Carpentras, Mormoiron or Sault to the emergency room in Avignon which, in addition, will quickly find itself saturated. People will remain on the floor… It is not the role of the Medical House to receive people in serious condition, with the threat of stroke or heart attack… And with increasingly stressful lives, there will be more and more case“, continues without frills, Mr. Andrieu.
“I am once morest this law”, also confirms Jacqueline Bouyac, president of the agglo de la CoVe and vice-president of the surveillance committee at the hospital. “We had made the proposal to supplement the salaries to support the service but the law forbade us to do so. A community cannot intervene. The situation is serious“.
“We risk making noise with this threat of closure. We can’t sit idly by“, says the mayor for his part. The mayor of Carpentras intends to get closer to the association of mayors of Vaucluse and says to himself “prepared to take action so that the law does not apply in this way or is changed. We’re not going to let it go !”.
The heads of poles and signatories of the letter to elected officials and health authorities: “A political decision that will put our heads under water”
“It’s not a wave but a tsunami that will hit the hospital in Carpentras!“. Dr. Olivier Lapierre, head of the geriatric medicine center and ardent defender of the public hospital and the Emergency Department (he was one of the spokespersons for the service extension project), does not lose his temper facing the contours of the Rist Law.”The inhabitants of the Comtat Venaissin basin are 90,000 in winter but 200,000 in summer! We have to keep the interim, we know that. We only have this solution. In Aubenas, the hospital is 80% temporary, how will he do it? It’s a stupid law that was made without consultation or discussion with the field. We are in the process of establishing the centralization of the public hospital and eliminating the small hospitals. Avignon will not have broad enough shoulders to absorb everything. If a minister takes a vacation in Sault; he may realize the usefulness of a hospital like ours…“.
30 to 40% of emergency temporary workers who might flee to the private sector
Infarction, stroke, fractures, polytraumatized, sutures, it is the daily emergency. Today, the department has 5 full-time equivalent doctors, 5 to 6 temporary doctors and 6 foreign associate practitioners. Per day, he rotates with 2 senior doctors and 2 associate practitioners; at night 2 seniors and 1 associate practitioner. Making a schedule was already a headache, doing it in April without temporary workers is an impossible mission for the head, for 3 years, of the emergency department, Dr. David Munoz, and vice-president of the establishment’s medical commission. . “I have evenings, without doctors, so I won’t be able to open in April. Interims no longer want to come with this pay scale. The working conditions will not be met to accommodate the patients. At 8:30 a.m., we already have regarding ten patients because we are absorbing those who cannot be accepted in the departments for lack of beds. During the day, we are on average between 70 and 80 patients. It’s a lot of weariness“, admits the head of the pole. “It’s a political decision that will put our heads under water. You have to be really hooked and believe in the beauty of public service to continue… It’s the mission of caring for everyone and the cohesion of the teams that keep us going“, he continues. “I had already denounced the drop in staff and the fatigue of doctors last summer“. As for the interim, if it represented 10% in the Emergency Department before, it is 30 to 40% today. “Young people no longer pass the competition for hospital practitioners because the remuneration is not attractive enough. As for this law, it only applies in the public… So we will lose some of our temporary workers who will go to work in the private sector… And the population will suffer…“
Only one pediatrician in the maternity ward
In the maternity ward, it is Dr. Michel Casta, head of the gyneco-obstetrics department, who is tearing his hair out. “We have been alerting for 20 years and nothing has been done. This is the result of a lack of attractiveness and an insufficiently wide numerus clausus“, he denounces. “In the department, I only have 2 full-time pediatricians, one of whom is on sick leave. We are in discussion with three replacements and are in the process of contacting our temporary workers. Some would continue with the pay change, others are considering. Maternity is in danger. The transfer of pregnant women to Avignon with an already overwhelmed Samu is just as worrying…”.
