Le Figaro Nantes
Every evening, from 17:30 p.m. until 8:30 a.m. the next day, the emergency department of the Ancenis hospital (Loire-Atlantique), about forty kilometers east of Nantes, is not accessible to patients. This has been going on for five months now. On 10 February, this decision was taken again - after a single month of reopening in January - due to a shortage of staff. If the health establishment is not the only one in France to experience this type of difficulty, local elected officials and residents of the sector are worried about seeing the situation drag on and fear that they will never return to the level of service of before.
As early as December 2022, Rémy Orhon, the mayor of the commune, had sent a letter to the Minister of Health, François Braun, to alert him on the subject. He has just received an answer. "I've been waiting for it for five months," he told Le Figaro with a touch of bitterness. Reading the letter, dated May 16, the local elected official will not have learned much. After a reminder of the facts and the "alternative measures of access to care" put in place by the Regional Health Agency (ARS), the minister does not make any concrete announcement.
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The "mobilization" of the ARS
It only mentions that "the Pays d'Ancenis remains a priority sector for action" and that the various actors in the health sector "are fully mobilized both in favor of the consolidation of the hospital offer and that of the first resort". Without detailing the device, he also writes to have "asked the ARS Pays de la Loire to follow with particular attention the evolution of this situation". Words, nothing but words, could sing the inhabitants of the area.
Not resentful, both in form and substance, Rémy Orhon is against bad luck good heart. "I didn't really expect more than that and that he would find a solution. At least it confirms the needs and mobilization of the ARS on the subject," he notes. The elected official is also satisfied that the new director general of the ARS Pays de la Loire, Jérôme Junel, organized a meeting with the director of the hospital center and himself "fifteen days after taking office (February 27, Editor's note)", which would demonstrate that the organization has "fully measured the problem of access to care".
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Three anaesthetists recruited
"Apart from cloning emergency doctors, there is no immediate solution," says Rémy Orhon, aware that the problem is national. The elected official still wants to see the glass half full and evokes "positive signals" even if he recognizes a "situation that remains fragile". In addition to the minister's letter and the appointment with the ARS, it indicates "the recruitment of three anesthesiologists". Already temporary workers at the Erdre et Loire hospital centre, they have been given tenure.
"I know that there are also exchanges with emergency doctors and that contacts have been established," reports the edile. Despite everything, he wants to be cautious and does not want to give false hope to the inhabitants: "A reopening before the summer, it is not possible. The wish is that it will take place at the end of the year, around the months of November-December".
