French emergency rooms "at the limit", according to striking medical staff

Emergency room staff from dozens of French public hospitals staged short strike strikes Tuesday and Wednesday to protest working conditions that they say put the lives of patients at risk. About sixty hospital services are involved in a protest movement that began in mid-March after an attack on emergency staff in a hospital in Paris.

Emergency care in France is at an "unprecedented break point," said François Braum, president of the ambulance union of Samu-Urgences, who appealed last week for short work stoppages duration.

Emergency room staff can not legally stop work. He therefore takes five lunch breaks and continues to treat patients while displaying protest placards in emergency rooms and wearing slogans on their uniforms.

Striking staff say they face low pay and unsustainable work in overcrowded emergency rooms. According to a 2017 Senate report, emergency room visits have doubled in the last 20 years.

They demand the end of hospital closures, the reduction of the number of hospital beds and a salary increase of 300 euros per month.

Patients at risk
The emergency staff says that they are overworked, which frustrates sometimes violent patients. A series of violent incidents against emergency personnel at St. Antoine Hospital in Paris sparked the ongoing protest on March 18. It then spread to most of the 25 public hospitals in the capital before taking off in the regions.

Long wait times in an emergency room can also be fatal. In December, a 55-year-old woman died while she was waiting for treatment at the Lariboisière hospital in Paris, which has the city's busiest emergency room. An investigation concluded that the protocol was not followed because the emergency room was overwhelmed with patients that day.

Qualified staff
French Health Minister Agnès Buzyn responded to emergency workers' concerns Monday during a visit to the site of a new hospital under construction in Corsica. She said she heard "their fatigue and frustration," but added that there was "no quick fix."

There is not enough qualified emergency room staff in France to meet this need, she said, adding that it was a problem. international problem.

Buzyn said the government had put in place a training plan for 400 new employees in the coming years. She discussed other options for releasing current staff in order to deal with major emergencies, including selective sorting to directly admit patients with known chronic diseases to the hospital and the creation of On-call medical centers to treat less serious emergencies.

The collective Inter-Emergency, representing workers on strike, said it was disappointed with the answer. The group called for a national day of action on June 6th.