A few thousand people marched on Saturday near the Ministry of Health in Paris to demand an end to bed closures in public hospitals and better working conditions for caregivers.
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The salary increases of the “
Ségur de la santé
” have not extinguished the demands.
Throughout their - short - procession between the Invalides, the Necker hospital and the ministry, the demonstrators took up the slogan: "
We want beds, posts, for the public hospital
".
More numerous than usual - 6,000 according to a trade union source, 2,100 according to the police headquarters - they had first come to ask "
urgently to stop all scheduled bed closures
", in order to send "
a very clear message
"to"
reassure the hospital agents in a context of new wave
"of Covid, told AFP Yves Veyrier, general secretary of Force Ouvrière.
The union, whose section of the Nord-Mayenne hospital is at the origin of this demonstration, had beaten the recall of its troops for the occasion.
The CGT, SUD, several healthcare groups (Inter-Urgences, Inter-Hôpitaux, Santé en danger) and some political parties (LFI, EELV) were also present, as were associations of users of small establishments such as Amilly (Loiret ) or Longjumeau (Essonne).
The working conditions were also on everyone's lips.
Nurse in intensive care at the Kremlin-Bicêtre (Val-de-Marne), Séverine, 44, deplores that in her service the beds remain "
closed because people are not there
" to fill the positions.
She hopes for recruitments "
to be able to do (her) work correctly
".
"
We are always asked for more with ever less resources
", regrets Sophie, 37, nurse in Melun (Seine-et-Marne), who would like to have more "
communication and empathy
" with patients, but believes that 'he is no longer "
given the time to have this relationship with the patients
".
