hiring, working time… Macron’s announcements

While the FO-Santé union issued a strike notice from Tuesday, January 10, the President announced measures to remobilize the medical profession. Statements that are not unanimous.

The nursing staff of public hospitals will join the protest movement of their liberal doctor colleagues. The FO-Santé union, which came second in the union elections, has filed a strike notice which will be effective on Tuesday January 10, 2023 from midnight. The union justifies this “unlimited” strike, denouncing “unacceptable working conditions suffered by all public servants, but also and above all to obtain a radical change in health policy”.

Shaken for years, the French health sector is particularly under pressure this winter in the face of the triple epidemic of influenza, Covid-19 and bronchiolitis which affects France. Among the demands of the hospital union, the recruitment of nearly “200,000 agents in the health, social and medico-social sectors”. the communicated of FO-Santé reports hospital workers “overwhelmed” and “exhausted”. A “dramatic” situation which the government will quickly have to remedy to avoid an immobilization of the health system.

Emmanuel Macron’s announcements for the health sector

On the move this Friday morning at the South Francilien Hospital Center in Corbeil-Essonne, the President of the Republic presented his wishes to the caregivers. During his speech Emmanuel Macron unveiled measures to support the field of health. In front of the nursing staff, the President announced that he had to face a “challenge” to manage to mitigate the crisis, the President announced that he wanted to “accelerate the recruitment of medical assistants” like the secretaries of the medical profession announcing at the same time the hiring 10,000 medical assistants by 2024 to “relieve caregivers of peripheral tasks, so that they can devote themselves to care”. In addition to his communications on care auxiliaries, the Head of State also announced “reinforcements” with additional places for nurses.

He also pointed to the organization and “hyper rigidity” within hospitals, “this is the last place where the 35 hours still work”. The Head of State has promised to remedy this by June. Emmanuel Macron announced in his vows that he wanted to highlight “stronger freedom of organization” within each service.

The Head of State also used this forum to respond to the demands of liberal doctors who are asking for better remuneration during consultations from 25 and 50 euros. He assures that the government can “better remunerate doctors who provide ongoing care and those who take care of new patients”. These measures should be specified by March 1, he said.

On October 23, 2022, the Minister of Health François Braun had already announced an envelope of 150 million euros for “the services in tension of the hospital”, in particular in pediatrics, a service then confronted with the surge in cases of bronchiolitis. . A year earlier, after the Ségur de la santé, the government had announced an investment of 19 billion euros mobilized over several years in the hospital medical sector but also medico-social, whether in the public or private domain.

Ads that are not unanimous

These announced measures did not convince the opposition, nor certain caregivers who made it known. Aurélien Taché ecologist deputy of Val-d’Oise, announced an Americanization of the system. “We are going straight to the American-style hospital! The fight for our health system has only just begun and 2023 will be the year of the moment of truth,” he said. tweeted. Also on the social network Jean-Luc Mélenchon denounced a “health crash”.

The main concerned, namely the doctors, denounced measures that were too light. Frédéric Pain, representative of the association of emergency physicians, castigated on BFMTV that the President did not realize “the seriousness of the problem”. Others like Agnès Ricard Ricard-Hibon, spokesperson for the French Society of Emergency Medicine, however welcomed “announcements that go in the right direction” but already known because “many of the solutions that are proposed were already in the 2019 emergency overhaul pact” she noted at France info.