Toulouse. Heads up against paid parking, intended to “fatten the shareholders” of the clinic
Through Guillaume Laurens
Published on
Ramsay Santé is still under fire from critics. While the car parks became chargeable at the beginning of 2021 at the Clinique de L’Union, the mayors of 27 towns northeast of Toulouse, and of all political stripes, still form a united front to bend the private group.
Residents called to demonstrate
After a petition which had requested more than 17,000 signatures in the spring, they intended to “bring the anger of people who could no longer go for treatment or to visit relatives”. And now respondent to the “Citizen mobilization”. A major event is scheduled for Saturday, November 20, 2021, at 3 p.m., on the forecourt of the clinic located in the town of Saint-Jean (Haute-Garonne), with a single watchword: “Say no to paid parking”.
Free for patients and their visitors
In an attempt to defuse the conflict, the Ramsay group, which operates the establishment, indicated that they had taken measures such as “the free half hour, the free one for people with disabilities or a special package for people with chronic pathologies” . But for these local elected officials, the account is not there. It is even “loin to be sufficient”, blown Marc Péré, Mayor of L’Union, who believes that “despite several letters, and proposals made, nothing has really changed. They simply agreed to make exceptions for a few types of patients: those who are enthusiastic, pregnant women, or people with disabilities ”.
Local elected officials are still demanding free for patients… and for their visitors. “But what saddens us the most is that nothing is done for people with low incomes, for whom it is necessary free”, defends Bruno Espic, the mayor of Saint-Jean. “Disadvantaged people are forced to keep track of their visiting hours. It is unbelievable that we cannot go to see a loved one on a daily basis because it costs ten euros a day ”.
According to him, the director of the clinic is ordered to comply with the strategy of the private group: “I am not sure that he has a free hand. It is Ramsay who imposes it. They do this all over France… ”.
Land made available for the symbolic euro …
Ultimately, the elected believes that it is the patients who are held hostage, especially as the clinic is poorly served by public transport, with “a bus every half hour”. According to Bruno Espic, the commissioning of these barriers has a domino effect throughout the neighborhood: “To avoid paying for parking, people park in the Intermarché car park, on those of nearby businesses, or in the surrounding streets ”.
The first magistrate recalls in passing to Ramsay that at the beginning of the 90s, “so that the clinic could move because it did not have enough space at L’Union, the town hall of Saint-Jean had made these lands available for a symbolic euro ”.
Cupping cars at L’Union?
Elected officials also deplore “Fallacious arguments” put forward by the Ramsay group, to justify the installation of these barriers. They make a distinction between on the one hand the similar measure taken by the Toulouse University Hospital at the Purpan Hospital, where paid parking – but with patient rates at symbolic prices – was intended to allow users to park, while curbing the behavior of motorists who took the opportunity to take the tram and go to the airport, and on the other “The humbug” from the Ramsay group to L’Union, says Bruno Espic.
” That’s not a tourist destination place major ”, ironically Didier Cujives, mayor of Paulhac… and president of the departmental tourism committee.
The L’Union clinic, a hospital that does not say its name?
“If all the clinics are setting up paid parking lots, it is because the financial interest is there ”, continues Bruno Espic. The Ramsay group has made the same choice in its new clinic at La Croix du Sud, in Quint-Fonsegrives, and recently at the clinic in Cèdres in Cornebarrieu. The Elsan group followed suit with the Occitanie clinic in Muret.
But elected officials from the northeast believe that the case of The Union is different another, the sector being comprised of public hospital …
“Unlike other private establishments in the agglomeration, which drain a more diffuse population, the L’Union clinic is a local hospital for the north-eastern territory. It is somewhat our center of local care, and our emergencies “.
“To fatten the shareholders of Ramsay”
“Access to healthcare is free in France”, points out Didier Cujives, who calls on the Ramsay group to “be in accordance with this great principle”.
“There, private groups are making money by being financed with public funds and on the back of social security. We undermine the principle of free health care, to go and fatten the shareholders of the Ramsay group who want more dividends “.
According to their calculations, Ramsay Health should garner “At least 2 million euros in revenue per year ”with these new paid car parks at the L’Union clinic. “I do not worry about the Ramsay group”, supports Thierry castet, mayor of Roquesérie. “But if we need to plug the leaks by charging for parking, it is because there is a more global management problem…”.
“60 euros per month more, it’s a caddy less”
Citing the example of a resident of The Union “who had to pay 179.20 euros parking fees in three months to go to see her hospitalized husband three hours a day, while she receives a pension of 920 euros per month “, Marc Péré believes that” the anger is great “among users, and recalls that this is added in a more global context linked to the “soaring cost of gasoline, raw materials and electricity.
“60 euros per month more is a caddy less”.
“A terrible threat” for Ramsay: “That his image is damaged”
These mayors warn the owner of the clinic, who are also planning to build a new consultation center (for which the building permit has not yet been filed, editor’s note) on the Saint-Jean site: “The Ramsay group must above all face a terrible threat, that of may his image be tarnished, and that patients turn away from it, ”warns Marc Péré.
Didier Cujives reminds Ramsay of the good memories of the 2000s, when “They wanted to set up an airport” in the area. A project remained nailed to the ground “in the face of the mobilization of elected officials, then the population”.
Beyond the event of November 20, elected officials want to register the sling “in the long term” and are already announcing that “the event is required to be repeated every month”. “It will go crescendo”, warns Marc Péré, who sees coming “the time of popular outburst”.
“If they care about their paid parking, and if their system is really intended to fight against sucker cars as they advance, even if I do not believe it for a second, there is an easy solution”, Bruno concludes Espic: “Make parking completely free for patients and visitors”. To the best of my mind …
Who are the 27 mayors of the sector opposed to paid parking?
The 27 mayors who mobilize citizens against paid parking at the Clinique de L’Union are: Jean-Noël Baudou (Gémil), Éliseo Bonneton (Saint-Jean-L’Herm), Daniel Calas (Gragnague), Jean-Baptiste Capel (Montastruc-la-Conseillère), Thierry Castet (Roquesérie), Christian Ciercoles (Garidech), Didier Cujives (Paulhac), Bruno Espic (Saint-Jean), Diane Esquerre (Castelmaurou), Marc Fernandez (Beaupuy), Brigitte Galy (Bazus ), Sabine Geil-Gomez (Pechbonnieu), Fabian Giza (Azas), Corinne Gonzalez (Lapeyrouse-Fossat), Isabelle Gousmar (Montjoire), Gilles Joviado (Buzet-sur-Tarn), Sophie Lay (Saint-Geniès-Bellevue), Claude Marin (Saint-Loup-Cammas), Robert Médina (Mondouzil), Marc Péré (L’Union), Michel Rougé (Launaguet), Bertrand Sarrau (Labastide-Saint-Sernin), Thierry Savigny (Montberon), Jacques Sébi (Montrabé) ), Philippe Seilles (Bonrepos-Riquet) and Jean-Gervais Sourzac (Rouffiac-Tolosan).
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