The day after a call to demonstrate everywhere in France on the part of hospital staff, the Minister of Health Brigitte Bourguignon announced this Wednesday the first measures to try to stem the crisis in the emergency services before the summer, during a speech at the Emergencies Congress in Paris. Announcements without waiting for the end of the “mission flash” information launched by Emmanuel Macron.
Overtime paid double
“Summer will be difficult” and it will take “find solutions so that the French are not deprived of care”, said the minister, while 120 emergency services have been forced to limit their activity or are preparing for it, according to the count of the Samu-Urgences de France association, which dates from the end of May.
The executive has in particular “decided to reactivate the doubling of overtime pay for non-medical staff, and additional working time for doctors, for the entire summer period”.
Brigitte Bourgignon also announced “an exceptional device” so that “Nursing students and caregivers who completed their initial training in June and July (can) start practicing immediately, without waiting for the official presentation of their diploma”.
Retired caregivers “volunteers to resume an activity” this summer will benefit from “facilities for accumulation (with) their retirement pension”. The regional health agencies (ARS) will have to “remobilize territorial crisis management systems” to coordinate public hospitals, private clinics and liberal professionals.
Ces “first measures will soon be supplemented by the proposals of the Braun mission”, she added. Emmanuel Macron asked Dr François Braun, head of emergencies at the CHR in Metz and president of Samu-Urgences de France, to oversee the “flash mission”, the results of which are expected before July 1.
“The means announced are not enough”
If the doubling of overtime pay is “good news” for Thierry Amouroux, the spokesperson for the National Union of Nursing Professionals, the measure remains a patch, according to him.
“We are in a situation where the hospital is collapsing, not just the emergencies but in all the services with 15% of the beds which are closed in the hospitals of Paris for example, he explains on franceinfo. These measures absolutely do not answer that. You have to give yourself the means, change the software: raise salaries of course, but also review the ratios of patients to nurses to encourage those who have stopped exercising to come back to the hospital. The announced means are not enough”.
The appeal to retired caregivers is also a “good thing” believes the spokesperson, but still not enough, he believes, with “60,000 nursing vacancies today”. “The boat is sinking and Mrs. Bourguignon provides us with a glass to bail out”, he adds.