Unlimited general strike at Toulouse children’s hospital
“We are supposed to have a nurse for two children, we end up with one for eight”, explains Élodie *, a state registered nurse. Sometimes it’s worse: “Last night, a colleague went on sick leave. No one to replace her. We ended up with a nurse for 19 children, ”adds Annie *, one of her colleagues. “According to the texts, when a child arrives at the reception of the hospital, we are supposed to see him within a quarter of an hour. There, we can have up to 2h30 of waiting, ”adds Sarah * a third. She continues: “Every day, we come with a lump in our stomach, telling ourselves that we are going to lose one. When is it going to happen and especially on who will it fall? “
A “stunned” occupational doctor
On December 6, alerted by several doctors and paramedical personnel, Jérôme Sommé, occupational physician, raided the Children’s Hospital. The next day, he records what he saw in a letter addressed to Anne Ferrer, the acting director general. “I was amazed by the situation in which these healthcare professionals currently find themselves, whether in terms of physical ergonomics (premises, equipment), work organization (downstream beds, medical FTEs) and paramedics) and their physical and mental exhaustion (going as far as symptomatic suffering verbalized by some), ”he wrote in a letter that Mediacités was able to consult.
He describes “a lack of human resources”, but also a “collective work space unsuitable for the number of professionals”, a “lack of computer, a disemboweled chair”. He also notes a “lack of beds in the hospital forcing the care of patients in the corridors, eight during my visit and two children present for more than 24 hours for lack of solution for a transfer to pediatric emergencies”. By way of recommendations, he asks the general management to be diligent about a “visit to the premises and services as quickly as possible in order to observe the situation”. In vain. The management of the CHU does not flinch.
On December 15, the Health, Safety and Working Conditions Committee (CHSCT) of the CHU launched a serious and imminent danger procedure at the Children’s Hospital. Almost all departments are affected by the deterioration of working conditions: absence of replacement staff for critical care, overtime taken on rest days, etc.
Agents accused of “abandonment of post” or “desertion”
The next day, the members of the CHSCT, in which the other staff representatives and management representatives sit, meet to investigate the matter. They ask the caregivers to come and testify in front of them. Quickly, the meeting ends, as the nurses have arrived. According to them, health executives threatened to initiate procedures against them for “desertion” or “abandon post” if they ever went to this interview. Asked by Mediacités, the management of the Toulouse University Hospital did not want to follow up on our questions.
The process resembles the misadventure experienced by a caregiver at this establishment. On November 4, Elodie, a nurse at the children’s hospital on sick leave for several months for professional exhaustion, was struck off by management for “abandonment of post”. The nurse brought the case to the Toulouse administrative court which ruled in her favor on December 13. Not enough to make the management of the hospital more reasonable since it decided to appeal the judgment on December 28. This showdown says a lot about the type of management that reigns at the Toulouse University Hospital. “The goal of these actions is to create a climate of terror while depriving the agents of their statutory rights”, fulminates Julien Terrié, CGT representative at the CHU.
On December 17, further discussions and a new meeting of the CHSCT. Its president, Muriel Legendre, as well as Patrick Javel, from the care department, are asked to explain these obstacles to the agents. They will try to justify the unjustifiable. Extract from a recording of the session that Mediacités obtained: “The instruction which was given to all the executives was not to prevent the agents from coming, but simply to remind the health executives that no agent could leave his service without having informed the manager and that it was verified that the continuity of care was guaranteed ”.
Pauline Salingue, secretary of the CHSCT does not believe it. “Who gave this instruction to the agents who went to a CHSCT investigation?” Which ? “Asks this union figure from the hospital. In response, the director of care charges a lamp attendant: “An executive admitted to having perhaps had words that were too restrictive in relation to what she had received as information from her senior executive.”
“We go home, we complain, because we do shit all day.”
Despite these pressure surges, two nurses (one from pediatrics, the other from premature neonatology) were able to share their testimonies. Slices of life that they will deliver with rage and tears and which summarize the state of deep distress in which the staff of the children’s hospital of the best CHU in France find themselves.
The first describes his tyranny in the face of an increasingly unacceptable situation. “I’ve been working for three weekends, I’m fed up, I’m exhausted,” exclaims Sandra *, 36 years old. When we finish our shift, we go home and complain about doing shit all day. Young nurses who leave school do not know how to do anything (due to the abolition of pediatric modules in the initial training of nurses, Editor’s note). On account on us, the old ones, for the old ones. It is not for me to be the old ones! “
According to this professional, the lack of means would push some caregivers to buy with their own money. “In sheaves, they buy sheets for the little ones. We are in 2021 and management is saving a lot of money, denounces Sandra. We are asking for meal carts. I am on the verge of buying them myself! “
For the thirty-something, the desire is no longer there: “When I arrived at the hospital, it was a vocation and I did not want to work elsewhere. There, I am looking for another job, because it is no longer possible. The executives are putting the pressure on. They speak badly to us. You have to recruit. There are always holes in the schedules. Children are in danger. I am a mother. If I have to come here with my child, I freak out. “
“Do you want us to end up killing ourselves?” “
The testimony of Camille *, 40, is even more terrible. “What do you owe?” That we lose a little? And what will you say? That she’s a new nurse, that she was poorly trained and that the little one died of it? No, but do you realize? Do you want us to end up committing suicide? I come to think of it. Imagine that my executive opens the door to his office and finds me waiting, ”she warns with despair.
Confronted with the proposals of the members of the CHSCT, in particular in terms of immediate recruitments, Muriel Legendre, the president of the CHSCT at the time refused to follow up. In response, the labor inspectorate was seized. A complaint will also be addressed to the public prosecutor of Toulouse for “endangering and for failure of the general management of the Toulouse University Hospital in the organization of the continuity of care and in the general obligation of safety on the health of agents at the Toulouse CHU children’s hospital ”.
For the members of the CHSCT, the establishment is “out of control” and “the management does not make any decision”. They have also just written to the Ministry of Health to alert them to this situation. On January 11, after a rally at 1:30 p.m. in front of the hospital, the caregivers joined their colleagues in the city center of Toulouse on the occasion of a new national mobilization of the health sector. One more…