They will continue to practice surgery within the establishment but renounce their administrative responsibilities to protest against the “alarming deterioration” of the conditions of patient care.
They will continue to operate but waive their other responsibilities. This is the meaning of the letter co-signed by 53 surgeons from the Le Mans hospital and sent in particular to the Minister of Health François Braun, in which the practitioners present their “administrative resignation”.
A way of denouncing the “alarming degradation” of their service and of the hospital which does not allow patients to be accommodated “in correct and humanly bearable conditions of care” they write, as relayed West France.
Their establishment is indeed the victim of the numerous closures of emergency services in the rest of the Sarthe department, in particular in 2022. In their letter, the surgeons explain that this situation has forced the hospital to close 60 beds out of the 150 that includes the conventional surgery department because the paramedical personnel are mobilized in the hospital emergency department.
“Choosing between two cancer patients”
Immediate consequence: 110 operations had to be deprogrammed since January 9. The surgeons estimate that “tomorrow, given the emergency activity and the lack of paramedics, and therefore of beds, we will have to further reduce by 50% our scheduled surgery activity requiring hospitalization for at least one night” .
“We may also have to choose between two cancer patients, violating our sense of ethics,” they lament.
Professionals still denounce “poor” teams, sometimes not benefiting from the promised training and subjected to “untenable” pressures. Nurses “share their exhaustion, their incomprehension and their demotivation”.
A “loss of chance” for patients
The letter, also addressed to the regional health agency and to several local elected officials, found a relay with the president of the departmental council of Sarthe, who says he relayed the call of the surgeons to the ministry. This situation “creates a loss of chances that we cannot accept for the Sarthois”, estimates Dominique Le Mèner.
Le Mans hospital has already experienced similar mobilizations in the past. 17 chief medical officers had thus presented their administrative resignation in February 2020.