Le Matin – Public health service bill: The nurses’ unions are pissed off

Speaking, during the discussion in the PLF Committee, of a new system of remuneration for doctors, Fouzi Lekjaa opposed the nurses’ unions. The Minister Delegate in charge of the Budget provoked the ire of this medical profession which considers to have been excluded during the preparation of the bill of the public health service which would be in gestation. Nurses are also calling for the fee-for-service system, provided for by the said law, in the same way as doctors. They are announcing nationwide protest movements to make their voices heard.

The nursing corps is angry and threatens to launch nationwide protest movements in the coming days. This anger, which had been simmering for some time, emerged following the statements of Fouzi Lekjaa during the discussion of the PLF 2022 in committee in the House of Representatives last Friday.

The Minister Delegate to the Minister of Economy and Finance, in charge of the Budget, indeed announced on this occasion that the work of reforming the health system was underway and that, in this context, several draft texts prepared laws would soon be presented to Parliament. Among these texts, he specifically cited that relating to the public health service which would provide for new criteria concerning the remuneration of the medical profession, in particular fee-for-service. It did not take more to provoke the ire of nurses through their union organizations.

In this sense, Karim Belmokadem, secretary general of the National Union of Public Health (SNSP), affiliated to the FDT, declared to the “Matin” that his organization was conducting discussions to coordinate with other unions in order to plan protest actions. against the development of this text prepared without consultation with the actors concerned. “We have been advocating for the development of a text on the public service specific to the health sector for about two years. This has been one of our demands since the early 2000s. Moreover, the ordeal of the Covid pandemic has shown the particularity of health personnel and their status. The public authorities had excluded civil servants in the health sector from the general civil service statute (Editor’s note: provision made within the framework of law 39-29 promulgated on July 26, 2021, amending the civil service statute) and they had promised that a text would specify the new status of this body, but in consultation with the sector concerned. However, we learn that as part of the discussions relating to the PLF 2022, a bill will already be submitted soon to Parliament. This is unacceptable, ”plague the secretary general of the SNSP. All the more so, he adds, since the content that was announced in this pre-project is far from meeting the expectations of the nursing corps. “And yet, the draft text was announced by Fouzi Lekjaa, who was our interlocutor within the Ministry of Finance. He is very familiar with the file and the promises we have made from the government, ”he regrets.

Concretely, nurses, through their union representations, ask to be involved in the development of draft texts concerning the health sector. “We have had information about the bill relating to the medical civil service. We therefore seized, during the month of August, the Ministry of the Economy and Finance, through the procedure of the right of access to information, to learn more about this law. But the ministry told us that the file was not its responsibility. Today, we are surprised to see that the Finance Department recognizes, within the Chamber, through the statements of the Minister Delegate to the Minister of the Economy and Finance, in charge of the Budget, the existence of this text ”, explains, for his part, Bouabid Abassi, member of the national office of the Independent Union of Nurses. This union also held a meeting of its management and decided to schedule strikes by the staff of nurses and technicians in the public health sector in the coming days. In addition to this, the union sent a letter of protest to the Minister in charge of the Budget, Fouzi Lekjaa, in which it contests, among other things, the use of remuneration by act for the benefit of doctors without mentioning this possibility for the benefit of nurses and technicians from the sector. For its part, the SNSP also sent a letter to the Minister of Health asking him to submit the draft text of the medical public service so that he can examine it more closely.

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