They are on the front lines, but far from the spotlights and supportive night applause. In an uncertain health context, 256,000 employees continue to provide help and home care to 1.6 million people every day, including seniors, the disabled, etc. For the past few weeks, they have also been caring for patients contaminated by the coronavirus and returned home after emergency hospital care.
“Despite the budgetary efforts required from our sector, and despite the pandemic, our staff continue to work, with a keen sense of responsibility, but without any protection, in particular without a mask. We are the forgotten ones of health ”, alarms Laurence Jacquon, president of the Union union of the branch help and care at home, the USB, which federates 5000 structures on all the territory.
Four masks per day and per employee
These employees, 95% of whom are women, “refuse to leave people for whom their presence is vital. This is why they must be protected, and quickly! insists the president of USB. As employers we are responsible for their health at work. However, our staff must change masks after each patient visit, on average four times a day. At the rate of 256,000 employees, we are missing a million masks per day! "
We must act quickly because hospitals have a great need for beds and for this, patients who are better can get out of intensive care, go home and be taken care of. “We are of course in favor of this new treatment, but not without protection. Our structure managers are spending their days criss-crossing pharmacies trying to find a few boxes of masks, they have something else to do! "
On Wednesday, a hospital in the Grand-Est, [ NDLR region overwhelmed by the multiplication of contamination cases ] contacted the USB so that its structures take care of its patients at home: “We said yes, but on condition that the we are provided with a box of masks per patient ”, continues the president of the USB.
A plan of 20,000 recruitments and 15% salary increase
Faced with the needs that are announced in the short term and, in the longer term, those that will result from the law "Grand Age" announced for June, employers in the sector have just identified the need to make the profession more attractive. All employers in the sector, without exception, as well as the trade unions of employees CFDT and FO, have signed an agreement to increase wages in the sector by 15%. "A simple catch-up measure, but which needs to be validated by the State, co-financier", explains Laurence Jacquon before announcing the launch of a recruitment campaign for 20,000 employees to ensure the continuity of essential service in this unprecedented period.
