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On August 31, Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne announced various measures concerning upgrades for caregivers. The Prime Minister also intends to assign pharmacists the practice of new acts for better access to care. Long awaited, are these measures sufficient to manage the hospital crisis? Explanations.
While the Prime Minister was traveling to Rouen, she announced new, long-awaited measures. The goal? Allow to mitigate the crisis that the French hospital system is going through, still facing a shortage of caregivers. Long-awaited measures, but which would not be sufficient to make up for the lack of attractiveness of these professions, said Marc Noizet, president of Samu-Urgences de France on FranceInfo.
A salary increase of 300 euros per month
In total, the government announced that the revaluation of caregivers would cost 1.1 billion euros:
- 600 million euros concern “sustained” revaluations;
- 500 million euros concern new measures, which will be included in the Social Security financing bill.
This revaluation of carers will above all concern nurses and carers who work at night, in order to solve a problem of attractiveness of the professions of hospital carers. “We are going to increase the remuneration of night work by 25% for nursing aides and nurses. This represents 300 euros per month more for a nurse in mid-career”, explained Elisabeth Borne.
In addition to nurses and nursing assistants, doctors will also be affected by the upgrading of caregivers. “We are going to make the 50% increase in call duty that we had experienced since last summer permanent and it will extend to all doctors, both public and private”, said the Prime Minister. A 20% increase in Sunday working allowance for non-medical professionals will also be implemented. For Marc Noizet, the “difficulty of night and weekend work” help explain the shortage of caregivers.
A controversial announcement
On FranceInfo, the president of Samu-Urgences de France welcomed these upgrades which affect “first and foremost the paramedical staff who suffer from a lack of attractiveness.” However, he relativizes by explaining that it is also necessary to change the “managerial methods” hospitals, in terms of “recruitment and the quality of life of occupational health professionals”. “Today we are short of around 15,000 nurses at the hospital, 5,000 nursing assistants”he specified.
For Thierry Amouroux, spokesperson for the National Union of Nursing Professionals (SNPI), the announcements of the Prime Minister are not going “fundamentally change” the situation with those “a few tens of euros more”. “The nurse in France is underpaid compared to other countries. If you go to Belgium it’s more than 30%, if you go to Switzerland, the nursing salary is doubled”he says to FranceInfo, before adding: “We want to be paid according to our skills and responsibilities”. According to him, it is also necessary to take into account the “hellish conditions” work of caregivers. “One in two nurses abandons their profession after ten years of practice (…) We have a wonderful profession, we are made to work in conditions so unworthy in France that it disgusts the caregivers”, concludes the spokesperson.
Delegate new medical acts to pharmacists
For more than a year now, the government has aimed to delegate certain medical acts to other health professionals. Already around twenty acts have already been delegated such as vaccination by pharmacists and midwives or the prescription of glasses by opticians or orthopedic insoles by podiatrists.
In addition to the announcement of the upgrading of caregivers, the Prime Minister announced that pharmacists will be able to perform other health acts. From now on, in the event of angina or cystitis, you can go directly to your pharmacist. “If you think you are sick, you can go directly to your pharmacist who will carry out a test and, if necessary, give you antibiotics”, said Elisabeth Borne.