Hospital. Unlimited strike in the Rouen emergency room

Emergency physicians from Rouen University Hospital started an indefinite strike last Monday to denounce the lack of human and material resources, as well as the deterioration of their working conditions. The notice, filed by CFDT, CGT and SUD, convinced more than one employee. “Monday morning, the strike rate was 100%, the striking agents are assigned and therefore work, this concerns about fifty agents”, underlined Frédéric Louis, secretary of the CFDT section.

Increased overtime

Since the establishment launched the white plan two weeks ago, involving the requisition of personnel to deal with the fifth wave of Covid, the service is saturated. However, about fifty hospital beds are closed. “If an emergency patient needs to be transferred to another department but there is no longer a bed, he remains in the emergency room”, deplores Frédéric Louis. Overwhelmed, the staff must take care of people without a care solution elsewhere, as well as those who arrive.

For the trade unionist, the establishment pays for the difficulties of recruitment. Forty nursing positions are said to be unfilled. “All the levers are mobilized to try to recruit, assures Bertrand Cazelles, deputy general manager of the hospital center . The increased overtime system is widely used. This allowed us to close fewer beds than expected in the first simulations. »

Rouen hospital is not an isolated case. The establishments of Laval, Ambert or Sarlat even had to close their emergencies for lack of personnel. For Frédéric Louis, “We need a ministerial decision, like a Marshall Plan, but exclusively to relaunch the public hospital and get it out of this precarious situation”.

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