The eventful welcome of Didier Jaffre, director of the ARS

Didier Jaffre (left), regional director of the ARS, was greeted by protesters lying on the ground. J.-M. C.

L’accueil mouvementé de Didier Jaffre, directeur de l’ARS

Didier Jaffre's arrival yesterday in Saint-Affrique was expected. His answers clearly did not convince the Emile-Borel collective and Le Manifeste. Story.

Yesterday morning, 350 demonstrators, some lying on sheets on the ground, welcomed Didier Jaffre, general director of the Occitanie Regional Health Agency (ARS), in front of the Richard-Sainct multi-purpose space. The mayors of Saint-Affrique and Millau, the MP, the president of the Department and the sub-prefect of Millau were also there to meet him. Many gendarmes were on site.

Didier Jaffre came to meet the hospital partners at the request of Sébastien David, mayor of Saint-Affrique and chairman of the hospital's supervisory board, but also of the Manifesto for the defense of hospitals and maternity wards in South Aveyron and the Émile-Borel collective.

The meeting took place in a rather surreal manner, tense at times, with some raised voices from some members of the ten or so representatives of the Manifesto and the collective. The latter refused to sit around the tables. They wanted to talk only with the director of the ARS and not with the other members of the joint hospital steering committee (Copil). Finally, after several minutes of discussion, the members of the two delegations sat down in front of the regional director's table. Although invited, the local press was asked to stay away, in this same room. The Manifesto and the collective addressed seven points which are their main demands: having a full-time director at the Émile-Borel hospital, maintaining and respecting the health cooperation group for consultations, stopping regulation in the emergency room as soon as doctors are recruited, opening the 20 beds with the current number of doctors, integrating staff and user representatives into the Copil, setting up a quarterly monitoring committee involving users and staff (request accepted) and providing the necessary budgets for the renovation of operating theatres and geriatrics.

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Finally, after a break in the session at the request of the two delegations who spoke with the demonstrators outside the room, the meeting did not resume. The director of the ARS went on foot to the hospital with members of the Copil, escorted by the people gathered in the street. At the entrance to the hospital, a scuffle took place with police officers, the demonstrators tried to prevent the director of the ARS from entering the buildings. Finally, the latter and his entourage were able to enter, visit several departments and speak with the agents. “We were waiting for precise answers to the questions we wanted to ask and we did not get them, regrets Henri Célié, spokesperson for the Manifesto. He (the director of the ARS, editor's note)came reciting the same speech that we have been hearing for five years, that is to say the common hospital will be the solution. What he did not understand is that five years ago, people believed this speech a little by saying that they were committed to not closing services while waiting for the common hospital. Except that people see that services are closing, that doctors are not being recruited, that those who do have, are being pushed out. Now they are making fun of us. He comes with ready-made ideas, a ready-made speech, and he does not take into account the reality on the ground. This is necessarily unacceptable. Let him talk to us about concrete things and not make speeches. It is clear that we will have to step up our mobilization.”

Didier Jaffre

Director of the ARS

Tribute was paid to the staff

After the visit of several hospital departments by the regional director of the ARS, the ceremony of wishes took place yesterday at noon. “2025 is a very important year because at the end of the month the jury of the competition for project management will unveil the plans for the preliminary draft of the joint hospital, declared Mayor Sébastien David. The wish is to start as quickly as possible the study part of the restructuring according to the real estate master plan on the Émile-Borel hospital to renovate the sites. I believe in this hospital and in the human component of all of you.” Véronique Martin Saint-Léon, sub-prefect of Millau, “expresses the wish that we can collectively believe in the commitment of the stakeholders in the common hospital”.