Caregivers in the street to demand “means” for the hospital

Hospital staff took to the streets across France on Tuesday to demand wage increases, but also “resources” and “positions” for the public hospital. In Paris, some 3,000 people according to the CGT left the Cochin hospital (14th arrondissement) to join the Invalides behind a banner “together to obtain better wages and the improvement of our working conditions”. This event was part of a day of national mobilization at the call of the CGT, SUD and CFE-CGC unions and several healthcare collectives (Inter-Hôpitaux, Inter-Urgences, Inter-Blocs, Printemps de la psychiatry…).

The Ségur de la santé, which resulted in wage increases and investments, “has not settled anything”, said to AFP the secretary general of the CGT, Philippe Martinez, referring to hospital staff “exhausted “. “It takes a lot more resources, human and financial resources. And we must stop closing beds, ”he stressed. In the procession, the red balloons of the CGT were numerous, the flags of the SOUTH more rare.

A minute of applause for caregivers “burned out”

In Bordeaux, the event brought together around 1,500 participants according to the organizers. “We have plenty at the CHU”, “Ségur for all”, “the first of the roped, it is us”, could one read on the signs of the participants, who carried out in front of the regional health agency a minute of applause for all caregivers “burned out” since the start of the pandemic. For Hakim Cherifi, emergency doctor at the Bordeaux Saint-André hospital, the public hospital has suffered from “20 years of accounting policy” and needs “more resources” to “not die”. “Having patients in the emergency room 24 hours on a stretcher for lack of beds is what bothers me the most,” he told AFP.

Everywhere, the demonstrators denounced the increasingly heavy workload, like Charlène Germain, manipulator at the University Hospital of Brest, met among the some 300 demonstrators who marched in the city Tuesday morning: “the activity has increased, but the workforce did not increase, ”she explains. “We have less and less time to take care of patients, while the number of radiological examinations has almost tripled with the health crisis. What we feel goes beyond fatigue, it is weariness ”.

Among the demonstrators, some also denounced the fact of being excluded from the upgrades of the Ségur de la santé, like Antony Valladon, 48, a nursing assistant in an association which marched in Paris: “in our establishment, 50 % of staff were excluded “from Ségur,” the care professions will have the 183 euros but not support professions or unqualified staff “.