Is the public hospital about to crack?
The second hospital public service union, FO-Santé, called on Wednesday for an "unlimited strike" from January 10, denouncing the "extremely degraded situation" in the sector and the "inaction" of the government.
After the liberal doctors, the hospital's turn to go on strike against "unacceptable working conditions" and "the endangerment of a number of patients and exhausted hospital workers".
FO-Santé said in a press release that it had filed an “unlimited strike notice” which “will take effect from Tuesday January 10 at midnight”.
Read also“The public hospital has abandoned me”: the emergency room crisis seen by the caregivers who threw in the towel
Yet a signatory of the "Ségur de la santé" in 2020, the union - comforted by its second place in the December elections - calls for "a radical change in health policy" and blames "the inertia of the government" which "did not than accelerating bed and service closures.
As a remedy for the "overwhelmed emergency services", the "recurring lack of doctors" or even the "great suffering" of psychiatry - among other grievances - FO-Santé is asking for "200,000 recruitments in the sectors of health, social and medico-social”.
A crisis revealed by the Covid
The Covid-19 pandemic has highlighted the very degraded situation of public hospitals in France, faced with a lack of resources to cope with such an influx of patients.
The triple epidemic of influenza, bronchiolitis and Covid-19 in recent weeks as well as the strike by liberal doctors have further weakened the system.
Since December 31, 93% of emergency care staff in Thionville (Moselle) have been on sick leave to protest against working conditions.
"We come to this because despite their commitment, the teams are exhausted, exhausted, and unable to provide quality care, which is unbearable for them," said Clarisse Mattel, nurse at the hospital and general secretary of the MICT-CGT trade union.
A note from the National Consultative Ethics Committee (CCNE) published in early November already called for “a deep renovation” of the health system and the holding of general meetings for public health ethics.
