With the general practitioners’ strike, is the Rouen Samu under water?
By Adrian Filoche
Published on
Tension, tension and fatigue. While many general practitioners in Seine-Maritime have closed their practices for a strike which must last until January 2, 2023, patients are turning to the Samu 76as a lifeline.
But this buoy, new as it is — the new Samu in Rouen opened on May 10, 2022 — appears very thin, or at least insufficient in this period of triple epidemic (bronchiolitis, Covid and flu) and seasonal holidays. Thereby, operators are overwhelmed with calls.
Two elected officials from Rouen alert the Minister of Health
On December 26, 2022, Sophie Carpentier and Marine Caron, municipal councilors of the City of Rouen, translated a letter to the Minister of Health François Braun to alert to the situation.
“The liberal doctors regulating Samu 76 have seen calls to 116-117 are increasing exponentiallygoing from 49,344 in 2019 to 81,337 in 2021 and 117,973 over the first 11 months of 2022”, let the two elected officials know.
Activity was particularly brisk during the holidays, with around 4,700 calls to the Rouen Samu on December 24 on 15 and 116-117, and 2,000 and 3,000 calls on December 25 and 26.
Fatigue accumulates
Liberal medical regulators denounce for their part a lack of means, in particular “telephone queues of sometimes more than 50 minutes leading to a lack of listening time and a risk of medical error”.
Added to these difficulties are the saturation of services and the lack of means and personnel in the services, which result in long waits in the emergency room.
Guillaume Herlin, secretary of the SUD union section of the Rouen University Hospital notes “a deep end-of-year fatigue which accumulates in the various departments”. Frédéric Louis, secretary of the CFDT at the CHU, indicates for his part that “the number of calls to 15 is exploding and the number of agents in post is insufficient”. At the beginning of December, the doctors had been received by management to testify to their discomfort at work and the difficulties encountered at the end of the year.
A strike, “if nothing moves”
For their part, the liberal medical regulators of Samu 76 warn of “the establishment of a strike from January 2, 2023, if nothing moves”, also detail Sophie Carpentier and Marine Caron.
In their letter addressed to the Minister of Health, the two elected municipal officials also make proposals to “compensate for the lack of professionals, medical and paramedical staff and the vocations crisis”.
They listen like this:
- The reopening of on-call medical homes;
- The multiplication of the number of lines of regulating doctors;
- The material upgrading of all care professions;
- The revaluation of remuneration and working conditions, to prevent these professionals from becoming exhausted, changing orientation or country.
The Rouen University Hospital worried
Regarding the situation at Samu 76, the Rouen University Hospital wants to be more reassuring: “To date and thanks to 116-117 for on-call care, the ability to respond to 15 for emergencies, within quick timeframes of unhooked, remains intact. »
The duty of care regulators at 116-117, alongside the medical regulators of the CHU, have a very high call traffic.
However, regarding the January 2 strike announced by medical regulators, the Rouen University Hospital does not hide a certain “concern”.
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