Compulsory vaccination, which is said to have driven away about 10% of the nursing staff, added to the recurrent austerity policy and the crying lack of doctors, are plunging many health establishments into a catastrophic situation. The social climate is increasingly tense.
Arnaud Chiche, an anesthesiologist and founder of the Collectif Santé en danger, sounds the alarm. Due to a lack of medical staff, and especially of emergency doctors, many hospitals are on the verge of collapse. Like in Creil, in the Oise region, where the future of the hospital is compromised. In Boulogne sur Mer, the SMUR is closed every other day: seven doctors out of 18 have left the emergency department of the Duchenne Hospital.
“Faced with problems of continuity and permanence of care”, the management of the Saint-Calais Hospital in the Sarthe region had to close the emergency service this summer. In Condom, in the Gers, due to a lack of emergency doctors, the medical ambulance is no longer available at night and increasingly …
In Le Havre, during the weekend of September 11 and 12, the emergency rooms of the Ormeaux clinic and of the Estuaire private hospital had to close. Due to the lack of emergency physicians in Bourges, patients were redirected to the emergency rooms of Saint-Amand-Montrond and Vierzon on October 8.
The “boss” of the Chiva emergency room (Ariège) is sounding the alarm to “ensure the survival” of the service. The same thing is happening in Thionville (Moselle), Mende (Lozère), Briey (Meurthe-et-Moselle), Royan (Charente-Maritime), Ambert (Puy-de-Dôme), Bourgoin-Jallieu (Isère), Troyes (Aube), Marmande (Lot-et-Garonne), Bar-le-Duc (Meuse), Gray (Haute-Saône), Thiers (Puy-de-Dôme), Remiremont (Vosges), Nîmes (Gard), Calais (Nord), Saint-Omer (Pas-de-Calais), Lens (Pas-de-Calais), Douai (Nord)… The list is still long.
The case of Montélimar
Despite the pandemic, the supply of care is decreasing, all the unions note. The Force Ouvrière union denounces the closure or deletion of more than 1,800 hospital beds in the first quarter of 2021 and asks the government to “break with an essentially financial approach to look at the needs of the population.
In Montélimar, in the Drôme, Elsa, a member of the administrative staff, CGT delegate and spokesperson for the Collectif Unis (30,000 members in 63 departments), is fighting against the vaccination obligation, which deprives establishments of nursing staff, even though they are essential to their proper functioning. She herself was “suspended” without pay on September 15. Of the 1600 employees of the hospital in Montélimar, 25 were suspended, to which we must add sick leave and maternity leave,” explains Elsa. By the end of December, 10% of the staff concerned by the problems of non-vaccination will be suspended without pay. In the Drôme and Ardèche regions, more than a hundred caregivers have refused to be vaccinated, and if we take into account the liberals, there are more than 250 of us. We are being punished, just like at school. The lack of personnel puts patients at risk.
The helping hand of the Confédération Paysanne
Faced with the delicate situation in which many caregivers who refuse to be vaccinated find themselves, and therefore without pay since September 15, 2021, the Confédération Paysanne came to their aid. Beautiful impulse of solidarity.
