Fréderic Valletoux, president of the Hospital Federation of France, calls for urgent measures to ease the management of working time in care units.
Twelve years after the establishment of 35 hours in hospital, the effects are deleterious. “If the needs of patients and the presence at work have evolved, the healthcare organizations have remained the same, generating growing tension in the services”, and this often to the detriment of the patients, affirms the Hospital Federation of France (FHF), which represents public establishments in the medico-social sector.
Presented this morning to the members of the parliamentary commission of inquiry on the impact of the progressive reduction of working hours, a study by the Federation carried out among 150 establishments shows that the regulatory puzzle has undoubtedly increased the shortage. of medical time in public establishments.
Thus, 24% of full-time hospital practitioner positions and 41% of part-time practitioner positions are now vacant. “For certain establishments, and certain specialties such as radiology or anesthesia, this situation has become extremely problematic”, with the consequence of a risk of deterioration in the quality of work and, by extension, of the offer of care. If the creation of medical and non-medical posts proved insufficient to compensate for the reduction in working time, it also generated an “unprecedented increase in the wage bill”: more than 30% between 2002 and 2012.
Limit to 15 days of RTT per year
“Hospital managers are dealing with an increasingly marked bureaucratism. What we want is to give them the flexibility they need in order to align the organization of working time with the organization of the healthcare offer, ”Frédéric Valletoux said to the National Assembly on Thursday.
To break the deadlock, the FHF proposes to cap RTTs at 15 days per year, but also to create “a territorial strategy” in which hospitals in the same area would define together “new rules and new organizations” taking into account local specificities.
For the president of the organization, it is necessary to be able to “question the presence of caregivers in the hospital at certain times of the day” in order to better cope with peaks of traffic in the services. “For 12 years, the internal organizations of health establishments have been based on an hourly structure of the working days: we plan the working time and then we plan the care. Refocusing work organizations on patient care has now become an absolute necessity, ”emphasizes Frédéric Valletoux.
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