Suspended since September 15, doctors, surgeons, nurses, nursing assistants and hospital staff are on strike in spite of themselves, because they refuse to be vaccinated despite the obligation to present a health or vaccination pass.
“The suspicious, neither a vaccination pass nor a health pass will make them change their minds” said Olivier Véran last week. The Minister of Health and Solidarity seems to be right, the majority of caregivers we have had continue to refuse the injection despite the loss of their salary.
We contacted by telephone several of these professionals who testified for FranceSoir, the reality of their daily life during a period of suspension: the importance of fighting against isolation, the difficulty of financial dependence, depression and then the positivism of joy to glimpse a “new world” soon. These interviews were conducted between December 31, 2021 and January 24, 2022.
A page turns
For Gregory Pamart, as a symbol, the end of 2021 was also the end of his adventure as a doctor in the town of Jenlain (1,000 inhabitants) in the Nord department. On New Year’s Eve, he had just vacated his office, when we contacted him. For this general practitioner, as for most of his colleagues who have taken a stand against compulsory vaccination, it is out of the question to accept the working conditions imposed on him.
The difficulty of keeping his office for a doctor also comes from the level of charges that they continue to pay. Because if the practice can no longer continue to receive clients, the owner must nevertheless pay the charges incumbent on the management of a medical practice: « funny, that’s it. I unscrewed the plates, it’s a page that turns. It is indeed an administrative choice, there are the charges. It’s also a personal choice, there’s also the relationship to myself: because we say “suspended caregivers” and it’s true that it’s a feeling of being suspended from something: not everything quite in the void, not quite in the air. And, so while I felt hanging on that thread I didn’t feel like I could properly build things for the future. I felt like I was stuck. »
The doctor hoped to “resume his activity”, he saw himself working there until retirement. A feeling of “injustice” and of having been prevented from being able to serve and help others. This feeling of being stuck in this situation, the other caregivers interviewed know it well. The doctors interviewed had not resumed their activity at the time of the interview in mid-January after a four-month suspension.
Legal battle and deprivation of precarious aid
For Stéphanie, a nurse, the discomfort is also important, she had been on sick leave since September 11, four days before the introduction of the obligation to vaccinate caregivers. She thought she could pass between the drops, finally the carer is suspended and her sick leave too, she no longer receives help at this level: “what I am asking for is recognition of my sick leave, they are supposed to see that I was off before my suspension. And what they mark on the paper is wrong, I am told that I am suspended on September 13 after an interview carried out on the 15th. There was no interview since I was on leave and I think that they made a mistake in the dates, they meant suspended on the 15th after the interview on the 13th, but even with these administrative errors, we send letters, but we cannot assert our rights […] With the collective in which I am, you have to make a summary procedure with an appeal in substance, we tried to save time, but what we see is that it is easier to win with the summary procedure before the date of suspension. I was told here in the association that in Paris where we are closer to power, the judges are harder to convince than in the provinces, so for the moment, we have not brought anything, the association is afraid corruption of judges. When you hear that, you can’t imagine how angry I am. »
Legal aid is also blocked by obstacles: “you can’t even file a complaint because if you lose, you have to be able to pay the lawyers and interest to the other party. Already that we are on a wire, we cannot afford everything, ”says another caregiver.
Vivien, hospital staff, was also disappointed by the powerlessness in the face of justice: “I am still in the process through two lawyers. With the first, we made an “emergency suspension” summary which was outright rejected by the judge in summary proceedings in Orléans, she did not even read the indictment, she rejected it outright. This kind of procedure has already been rejected in other regions and now they rely on it to immediately reject new complaints that come to them. We are convinced that the judge would have agreed with us, if she had just agreed to read the summary”.
For nurses and orderlies, among others, the lower salaries make survival in times of suspension even more difficult than for surgeons and doctors. Aid is also refused to them or made difficult to access when they want to have access to the RSA or other aid for precariousness. Vivien relies on housing aid: “with our daughter, we have aid from the Caf, but after paying the rent, we have nothing left to eat so… For the RSA, normally we should be entitled, I I have an appointment with an agent for this, so we’ll see what happens. »
Other caregivers contacted have already had these appointments and have been refused, the agents of these benefit funds were “severe”, according to a nurse, when they deal with a file of a “non-vaccinated”.
Vivien has the distinction of having been disabled after a serious accident more than a year before the vaccination obligation. He can no longer go back to work as he wishes, the difficulty of turning around is even greater for this worker in health establishments: “they offer us appointments to find solutions, but these appointments are sterile because that they do not understand our choices”.
Caregivers faced with alternatives
Contacted during their time at home, these phone calls were often driven by the enthusiasm of the children of these caregivers. If the situation is stressful, one of the positive points for these hyperactive professions is that these doctors, nurses and others have been able to make themselves much more available for their families. Nevertheless, we feel that the subject is not there. If their body is at home, the mind is elsewhere and these caregivers return to societal issues.
Several doctors for whom we respect their anonymity, confide to us that they had the “opportunity” to make “false passes”, which would have assured them of returning to work. These caregivers have chosen to continue their suspension for various reasons, either for fear of being illegal, while for others the break is too great and they do not see themselves returning to the “world before”. “Even if we went back it wouldn’t be the same, we would wonder what the elected officials are going to throw at us next time. Even if we resumed, we would not be comfortable. »
It should be noted that even “colleagues” who have caught covid in recent months have been able to return to health establishments to carry out their activity, thanks to the recovery certificate. Stéphanie also wishes to have this “Grail” which would allow her to resume work: “but apparently the virus does not pass through us. We really hope to have it, even for my daughter. After having experienced the fear of dying from it in March 2020, today we know that the dangerousness is so low, that we hope to be able to contract it and then have peace for six months.
A complicated return to work for newly vaccinated
Other caregivers have chosen to be vaccinated to resume their activity “food choices” for those testifying. Those who claim to have made these choices remained discreet and did not wish to testify, with the exception of a firefighter whom we had received.
This firefighter was very committed to the fight to assert his rights and this vaccination is not a turnaround for him. A choice of the heart, charged with emotion, he explains to us that he could not sacrifice his life and his home for which he worked so hard: “I call on all those who hesitate not to give in. I grew up in the estates and here I am in my fifties, I have been a dad since I was 45, I could have continued the fight, but that would have meant selling the house and everything. We talked about it a lot with my wife and we decided to stop.
I work as a firefighter, and I have another job in hospital care, my diplomas are in that environment, I couldn’t convert easily. But it hurts, both choices hurt…”
This firefighter explains his opinion on vaccines in which he has no confidence and calls on all the other suspended caregivers to continue the fight, when we ask him the question if he has the feeling of having been “raped”, he replies without hesitation: “ah yes, completely, I have the feeling that I am violating, no more, no less, the government is violating us with this obligation”.
The person concerned continues that the resumption of work was not easy: “I no longer feel linked to this work, there is no longer any joy in doing it as before. Something has been broken, the passion is gone. I no longer go there in the morning telling myself that we are going to do this and that, I feel half empty when I move forward. »
A couple of nurses and surgeons, both suspended, explain what they see of their colleagues having returned to work: “There is one who has returned to work thanks to the certificate, so we don’t bother him, but if you want there is another doctor who has been arrested for a long time. There when she resumed, the colleagues in her service did not give her any gifts. It’s even worse, they don’t believe in her past, they’re convinced she made a fake to get back to work. After a few weeks of work, she had to take sick leave for depression. This pressure at work, plus the discomfort of being vaccinated against his will, it was too hard.
One of the doctors interviewed sees these recoveries in a philosophical way: “I even have a lot of patients tell me that they had no choice, it’s important for me to remember that we always remain actors. And, if we refuse, we reject the responsibility and in the end we live it even more badly. »
Building in a “new world” rather than going back to business
For the couple, the idea of going back to work is not relevant: “We have completely changed our vision, we now say to ourselves that we have been treating people badly for X years, we could use other treatments to treat and there we fell into over-medicalization, big pharma and everything, cacheton-cacheton-cacheton and then presto. That’s not life, on second thought. »
Suspended doctors become resistant and organize themselves with other systems: “today, we are independent with my husband, we have no more dependent children, we live differently with this suspension. We met a lot of people at the demonstrations, including an association, the CLP, where we went, where we are a thousand now. We met a lot of people with real values, who are human and that changes, before the suspension we did not know that, we were at work all day, after that we go home, we sleep. There, we discover something else, really very rich. People with various trades. We can clearly see that there are things that are changing and during this time we are investing in these mutual aid networks. That’s what makes us not only hold on, but in fact we are much more fulfilled, we are in agreement with what we want. And a new world is not bad. »
Dr. Pamart fully shares this vision of the society of tomorrow: “ Professionally, I am trying something quite incredible, which is gratuity, that is to say that I have continued to treat patients but without charge. Because in commodified exchange, you always lose something, when you have to give of yourself for money, in my opinion you get poorer. For me, it is a real pleasure to take care of people, to know that they are better, to know that I have done what is good to do. Medicine is serving, and I am happy when I serve. »