The nursing staff of the Bordeaux University Hospital in Gironde began an indefinite strike on Tuesday June 28. The strikers are demanding recruitment, a salary increase, and are alarmed by the 600 bed closures announced by their management. It is the largest hospital in New Aquitaine.
A general and unlimited strike. Since Tuesday, June 28, the caregivers of the three establishments of the Bordeaux University Hospital (Pellegrin, Haut-Lévêque and Saint-André) have been called upon to stop work, in the form of regular walkouts. A first in the summer.
The inter-union bringing together FO, the CGT and Sud Santé claims hiring, reopening of services and salary increaseswhile the alarm bell has already been sounded several times on the situation of the hospital.
No less than 600 beds must be closed this summer, an aberration, for Pascal Gaubert, Force Ouvrière representative at the CHU. “I have been at the CHU since 1989, and I have never seen this. These 600 beds will be closed to compensate for absenteeism and staff leave”he recalls, while many caregivers already say they are called back during their rest and leave .
Six hundred beds, this represents almost 10% of the capacity of the CHU’s public care offer.
Pascal Gaubert, FO representative at Bordeaux University Hospital
Source : France 3 Aquitaine
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“All sectors are in difficulty“, continues the trade unionist who describes a hospital” breathless” and recalls the emergency situation, particularly affected by bed closures in all departments.
“When the patients, who are more or less stable, come out of the emergency room, they have to be put in the downstream beds. But if the beds of the various structures of the CHU are closed, the patients remain in the emergency room, which is itself saturated“, he continues.
Since May 18, due to lack of personnel, the night emergencies of the Pellegrin hospital are no longer freely accessible. Only an orientation by a doctor from the Samu, contacted by calling 15, can allow patients to access it.
Head of the emergency department, Philippe Revel does not participate in the strike launched by the unions, even if he claims to understand the reasons. “We all expect objective answers to the questions asked, he explains. The problem is real and the working conditions in the service are very bad. This summer promises to be even more difficult than the previous ones”he worries about the staff shortage.
Asked about the fears of a medical error, possibly linked to the particularly tense situation within the hospital, Dr. Revel wants to be reassuring. “Of course there is a risk. We all know that we are going to work in conditions that are not the best. But this risk is not very important, because we are warned and do everything so that it does not happen.”
This is not our main concern. We, what we want is to be able to work under the conditions that we usually set ourselves
Dr Philippe Revel, head of the emergency department at Pellegrin Hospital
Source : France 3 Aquitaine WEB
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In a press release the Regional Health Agency recognizes that the summer period will once again be synonymous with increased activity, with a large number of tourists and an increase in attendance. But she claims to have set up a new organization, to overcome this “tense context“. In addition to the regulation of direct access to emergencies, it recalls having pooled certain medical lines of emergency physicians, or even organized the involvement of general practitioners in emergencies. Not enough to reassure the private establishments of the department which worry about having to absorb a flow of patients this summer, without being able to anticipate its magnitude.
Responses also insufficient for the nursing staff, who are organizing a large rally this Wednesday at 2:15 p.m. in front of the general management of hospitals in Talence.
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