Le Figaro Nantes
Walking out the door after 17 years of work.
And some 530 fixed-term contracts.
A 60-year-old caregiver was removed in November from the maternity ward of the Santé Atlantique clinic, in Saint-Herblain, near Nantes.
This separation was announced to him by telephone, after several months of increasing tensions with his superiors.
It would now be the subject of proceedings before the Nantes industrial tribunal.
Contacted on Wednesday by
Le Figaro
, the caregiver - who prefers to remain anonymous - speaks
of "pressure"
and
"a lack of humanity"
from the management of the clinic as well as the Elsan group to which she belongs.
“I think I was too expensive,”
she also confided on February 27 to our colleagues at
Ouest France
, specifying that she had a series of part-time contracts, most often 28 hours per week, for
“a salary correct, between 1800 and 2000 euros
.
The pitfalls of working for seniors
The caregiver's lawyer, Maître Cédric Robert, would have counted
“at least 530”
fixed-term contracts between his client and the clinic, covering the last 17 years.
The lawyer intends to plead with the industrial tribunal for the nullity of the dismissal and the reclassification of the contract as a permanent contract.
A request justified, according to him, by the
“non-exceptional”
nature of these renewed fixed-term contracts.
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The caregiver, however, indicates that her working conditions had deteriorated since spring 2023, with
“48-hour weeks, four nights on call per week”
and that she had to be summoned after an incident linked to her taking in charge of a patient.
She was also accused of an
“alleged behavioral problem”
the day she learned of her non-renewal.
She adds to Le
Figaro
that she does not want to be
“miserabilism”,
loves her work, and is sorry to provide yet another illustration of the difficulty for seniors in accessing employment.
It was his choice
Nicolas Corneau, Director General of Santé Atlantique
The media coverage of this affair is surprising for the clinic.
Nicolas Corneau, general director of Santé Atlantique, assures that the sequence of fixed-term contracts was a choice of the caregiver.
“This employee chose not to apply for the various permanent positions, which have arisen over the years, both part-time and full-time.
It was her choice
,” he points out to Le
Figaro
, indicating that, to his knowledge, the short contracts that she had were well suited to her busy schedule of
“other activities
. ”
However, he cannot corroborate the figure of 530 fixed-term contracts, mentioned by the lawyer of his former colleague.
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The director, who is also not aware of any industrial tribunal procedure, emphasizes that the non-renewal of the nursing assistant's contract is to be attributed to
"the
drop in the number of deliveries
, a period of slack in maternity activity, as well as in the “CDIization” of other employees
.
Contacted by
Le Figaro
, Monique Puisay, CFDT union representative at Santé Atlantique, confirms the tension in several services following a reorganization of the workforce.
“Lacks of night nursing staff, in surgery for example, force us to only occupy one and a half floors out of two.
For maternity, the drop in the birth rate was the trigger for this service
,” she says.
The management of Santé Atlantique did not wish to comment on the allegations concerning internal tensions at the establishment nor the reproaches that its staff would have addressed to the nursing assistant at the time of her dismissal.
In France, only one in three people aged 60 to 64 is currently employed, according to the latest studies published by the Directorate for the Animation of Research, Studies and Statistics (Dares) of the Ministry of Labor.
A rate well below the European average.