About fifty rallies, organized by nine unions and hospital collectives, will denounce the “catastrophic situation” that the sector is experiencing.
Anger grows. In the midst of the emergency crisis and a few days before the legislative elections, nine unions and hospital collectives are organizing a day of mobilization on Tuesday, June 7, to demand wage and staff increases without waiting for the result of the “flash mission” ordered by Emmanuel Macron . For this first day of action of Macron's second five-year term, the CGT and its allies have planned rallies in at least fifty cities. In Paris, protesters are expected outside the Ministry of Health from 1:30 p.m.
Other actions are announced, often in front of hospitals, in Grenoble, Marseille, Nantes and Toulouse, but also in smaller localities such as Aurillac, Épernay or Cherbourg, where Emmanuel Macron came last week to announce a “flash mission” on emergency services. Because this is where the fire is smoldering: 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. It is moreover its president François Braun who will have to submit the conclusions of the “flash mission” to the Head of State by the end of June.
A justified delay in order to “look at emergency service by emergency service and Samu by Samu, territory by territory where there are needs”, explained Emmanuel Macron in an interview with the regional press on Friday, promising to “take emergency decisions as early as July”. But his opponents see it above all as a ploy to “postpone the decisions after the legislative elections” of June 12 and 19, when the health system is already “in a disaster situation”, denounced the emergency doctor Christophe Prudhomme, of the CGT- Health, Monday on RFI. “We are expecting a particularly difficult month of July and a horrible month of August” and “this flash mission is a bit of an insult to us”, even estimated Pierre Schwob-Tellier, from the Inter-Urgences collective. , during a press conference on Thursday.
“Shaking the taboos”
Criticism also targets the choice of François Braun, head of emergencies at the CHR in Metz and health referent for candidate Macron during the recent presidential campaign. The person concerned assured France info on Wednesday that he did not intend to produce “an umpteenth report” but “to write the prescription” expected by the hospital, adding to have “already leads”. Some appear in a letter sent to the Minister of Health, Brigitte Bourguignon, the day of her appointment and published on the website of Samu-Urgences de France.
They are sometimes consensual, such as the revaluation of night and weekend work, “very painful” but increased by only one euro per hour for nurses, which is “completely absurd”, he underlined . Other ideas are worrying, such as the obligation to call 15 to filter access to emergencies, implemented in Cherbourg or Bordeaux. An “unplayable” scenario for Patrick Pelloux, president of the Association of Emergency Physicians of France (Amuf), who predicts an explosion of calls to “already overwhelmed” Samu. With a risk of loss of chance for patients.
However, the option has defenders in the majority, like the deputy of Charente Thomas Mesnier, also an emergency doctor , who found it necessary in the Sunday newspaper to “get back into crisis management mode to get through the summer”, even if it means “refocusing” these services “on their real job, vital emergencies”. Eager to “shake the taboos”, the elected even pleads for “Smur without doctors”, with only nurses in the ambulance to compensate for the absence of practitioners in places, and suggests transforming into “day antennas” the emergency services that “we can no longer keep open” permanently.
Proposals little able to appease the “ebullient discontent” observed by the general secretary of the CGT-Santé, Mireille Stivala. To increase the pressure, Patrick Pelloux also plans to “launch a strike in the emergency room before the summer”.
