Several hundred people marched on Tuesday January 11 in Paris to demand ” means ” and “Posts” for the public hospital exhausted by the successive waves of Covid-19, and requesting an end to bed closures, noted a journalist from Agence France-Presse (AFP).
Left Cochin Hospital (14e arrondissement), the demonstrators – 3,000 according to the CGT – took the direction of the Invalides behind a banner “Together to obtain better wages and the improvement of our working conditions”.
The event is part of a day of national mobilization. Processions have been formed in several towns, at the call of the CGT, SUD and CFE-CGC unions and several healthcare groups (Inter-hospitals, Inter-emergencies, Inter-blocs, Printemps de la psychiatrie…). In the Parisian procession, the red balloons of the CGT were numerous; SOUTH flags, rarer.
The Ségur of health “has not settled anything”
The health sector, which resulted in salary increases and investments, “Did not settle anything”, estimated with AFP the secretary general of the CGT, Philippe Martinez, who mentions hospital staff « harassés ». “It takes a lot more resources, human and financial resources. And we must stop closing beds ”, he stressed.
In Bordeaux, the event brought together around 1,500 participants according to the organizers. “We have plenty in the CHU”, “Segur for all”, “The first on the rop, it’s us”, could we read on the placards of the participants, who applauded for a minute, in front of the regional health agency, all the caregivers “Burned out” since the start of the pandemic. For Hakim Cherifi, emergency doctor at the Bordeaux Saint-André hospital, the public hospital suffered from “Twenty years of accounting policy” and needs “More means” for “Not to die”. “Having patients in the emergency room twenty-four hours on a stretcher for lack of beds is what bothers me the most”, at-il dit à l’AFP.
Many technicians and hospital workers were also present in the procession to denounce their working conditions and their remuneration. “We have extremely rigorous cleaning protocols for our machines and more and more patients for Covid, cancer, serious illnesses, to be treated. We work like in the factory “, denounced Cécile Mata, 39, radiology manipulator at Bordeaux University Hospital, who claims “The same premiums” for technicians and caregivers in order to recruit young people.
“The more useful you are, the less you get paid”
Everywhere, demonstrators denounced an increasingly heavy workload, like Charlène Germain, manipulator at the University Hospital of Brest, met among the some 300 demonstrators who marched in the city on Tuesday morning: “The activity has increased, but the workforce has not increased. “
“We have less and less time to take care of patients while, moreover, the number of radiological examinations has almost tripled with the health crisis. What we feel goes beyond fatigue, it is weariness. “
In Lille, where some 400 people also marched, a sign proclaimed “The more useful you are, the less you get paid”. Adrien, a 29-year-old nurse in a public mental health establishment, deplores a workforce that has increased from twenty-nine to twenty-two full-time equivalents in his department during his seven years of work: “The workforce is on the streets, there are not enough people. I still have a vocation, but I am tired. ” A week after the resounding declarations of the President of the Republic, decided to “Piss off” the unvaccinated, a protester shouted in response: “We fuck him too. “