“Let's stay vigilant and mobilized”: 400 people at the public meeting on the health project in Saint-Affrique

Les prises de parole ont été applaudies par l'assistance fournie. Midi libre – Jean-Marc Cognot

Following the visit of the director of the ARS Occitanie to Saint-Affrique on Monday, January 6, the various groups organized a meeting to report on the discussions.  

On Monday morning, Didier Jaffre, director general of the Occitanie Regional Health Agency (ARS), met with the mayor and representatives of the Manifesto for the Defense of Hospitals and Maternity Units in South Aveyron and the Émile-Borel collective. The visit was quite eventful. After a meeting that clearly did not satisfy the latter, Didier Jaffre visited several departments of the hospital and participated in the ceremony of wishes.

“Let's not be fooled by beautiful promises”

On Monday evening, the mayor, the Manifeste and the Emile-Borel collective organized a public meeting at the Richard-Sainct multipurpose space to report to residents about this meeting and to consider future mobilizations. Nearly 400 people responded to the invitation. “The Collective maintains that Mr. Jaffre measured, given the mobilization, the emergency in which the hospital found itself to the point of reminding us that there would be recruitment of doctors by April and that beds would reopen, declared Régine Sauveplane, emergency nurse, on behalf of the collective. Let us not be fooled by these fine promises. Let us remain vigilant and mobilized.”

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“We were treated to classic smoke and mirrors”

Henri Célié, spokesperson for the Manifesto, welcomed the mobilization of protesters to welcome the regional director: “He is due back in three months, but we are not going to wait three months for something to happen. We are going to take action.”
Alain Fauconnier, former mayor of Saint-Affrique, made a highly noted and applauded speech. He addressed the subject of the hospital's health cooperation group (GCS) where private doctors consult within the walls of the establishment, for a fee: “We are entitled to the classic smoke screen of the Regional Health Agencies. The GCS is completely legal. If it had not been legal at the time, we would never have authorized this signature. When we demerged, the hospital was drained following the Intercommunal Hospital Center (Chic). The GCS was the hospital's tool for reconstruction and resistance.”

40 beds closed in four years

For the former mayor: “The problem is having closed 40 beds without saying anything for four years.” Alain Fauconnier declared “that there is nothing to expect from these people (the ARS, Editor's note). If, 20 or 25 years ago, we kept everything, it's because we fought. The hospital has its back to the wall. If we don't find solutions to fight to the death, in three months it will be over. The method is simple. We dissuade so-and-so by spreading little rumors. Letting people say that doctors who have worked for 30 years in Saint-Affrique are gorging themselves on money is pure shame. It's unacceptable. I'm sorry that doctors attached to this territory are forced to leave because they are despised in this way. We have a double duty. To fight like crazy and to be in solidarity with the doctors who are harassed by an administration that, in a sneaky way, disseminates venom so that people leave. The common director is there to kill us. In all the places in Occitania and France where they wanted to destroy the little guy, they put a common director. It's a classic. I'm both very angry and very optimistic.”