Emmanuel Macron at the Cherbourg hospital, at the bedside of the cracking emergencies

The Head of State is back on the field. Less than 15 days before the first round of the legislative elections, Emmanuel Macron is expected at the hospital in Cherbourg (Manche), this Tuesday, at the end of the afternoon. For weeks, cries of alarm have come from all over France: the emergencies are cracking.

The President of the Republic will be accompanied by his Minister of Health, Brigitte Bourguignon, for “a trip devoted to access to urgent and unscheduled care”. They must meet several Norman health professionals (emergency physicians, nurses, general practitioners, hospital management and the Regional Health Agency, ARS).

A telephone regulation system put in place

Health professionals fear the arrival of summer with great anxiety. According to the Samu-Urgences de France (SUdF) association, 120 hospitals would face “serious difficulties” in operating their emergency services.

And the Cotentin hospital center is not spared by the crisis. At the beginning of January, the establishment set up a telephone regulation system for emergencies in the evening and at night: it is now necessary to call before obtaining the right to come to the emergency room. A system, which, since Monday, is now in service from 3 p.m. each day and until 8:30 a.m. the next morning. It is the Samu which ensures the regulation of the service and the orientation of the patients. This mode of operation has been encouraged for many months by the ARS of Normandy to deal with tensions.

Health is one of the three “emergencies” that the government must tackle

In the Cotentin, affected like other regions by medical desertification, “the emergency department of Valognes (20 kilometers from Cherbourg) was closed a few years ago”, recalls France 3 Normandy. It was replaced by an unscheduled care center which itself experienced operational difficulties on several occasions.

Health is one of the three “emergencies” that the government must tackle, alongside the climate and purchasing power, Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne said on Friday, after a meeting in Matignon with her government. .

Faced with the shortage of personnel in hospitals, she assured that she had asked the “ministers concerned” to “make proposals to her very quickly to take effective measures for the summer”.