The plan to close the maternity ward of the Carhaix hospital gave rise, in 2008, to an eight-month labor dispute. Four years later, the merger with the Brest CHU benefits patients and doctors.
The story takes place in Carhaix, in the heart of Brittany in a small local hospital. Catherine, director of human resources, is sent to restructure the hospital and especially to close the maternity hospital, which is losing money. It is in this setting that the latest film by Marie-Castille Mention-Schaar, “Bowling”, which is released on screens this Wednesday, takes place. It is inspired by the social conflict that agitated this Breton town four years ago.
March 30, 2008. All the inhabitants of the small Breton town remember it. This day when the population took to the streets to protest against the displacement of maternity and surgical services from the hospital to Brest. A mobilization that lasted 8 months, with demonstrations and petitions, with a single objective to maintain health services in Carhaix. A painful and emblematic story of hospital restructuring.
Today at Carhaix hospital, the services that were threatened with closure are still there and especially in operation. Indeed, following the mobilization, the Carhaix Hospital Center finally merged with the Brest University Hospital. A decision that was not necessarily unanimous at the start among the defenders of the Carhaisian hospital.
A merger that has improved the healthcare offer
By merging the 1er July 2009 with the Brest University Hospital, the Carhaix hospital benefited from a large-scale investment plan. More than 1.7 million euros have been invested in Carhaix in 3 years. New equipment has been purchased in several departments, the infrastructure has been improved, and above all the nursing teams have been strengthened thanks to professionals from the Brest University Hospital who came to lend a hand to the Carhaisian teams.
Major medical bosses make regular visits there. Irène Frachon, the doctor who raised the alert concerning the Mediator even holds a pulmonology consultation every two weeks at the Carhaix hospital. “However, the first service that was able to benefit from the Brest investment, even if the change was not always easy, it is also symbolic, but it is motherhood”, confides Bernard Dupond, general manager of the CHRU from Brest.
Listen to Bernard Dupond, general manager of the CHRU de Brest: “Thanks to the merger, today for a woman, giving birth in Carhaix does not constitute risk taking. “
In Carhaix, it is not only maternity and surgery that have reaped the benefits of the merger. It is the entire hospital that has been restructured. “Even if it remains a local hospital, everything has been modernized. In Carhaix we are like in a part of the CHU de Brest, even if we are almost 100km away, ”says Bernard Dupond. While rumors of the closure of services have remained in people’s minds for a long time, over the months on the contrary, new disciplines have even appeared, bringing an increasingly varied range of care to the population. This is how urology, pediatric surgery, neurology and palliative care have landed in Carhaix. For other services, such as cardiology, which has never been threatened with closure, here too, the merger with Brest has led to improvements.
Listen to Jean Yvon Roudaut, cardiologist at Carhaix hospital since 1981: “The merger pulled us up. For the time taken to take charge of a heart attack, for example, thanks to the helicopter-borne means, we have gained a lot. “
For most of the health professionals who work in this hospital and who were already present at the time of “the events”, serenity has returned. Many welcome better working conditions. Have these undeniable progress been perceived by the population and by the patients of Carhaix and its surroundings? “There is no doubt that the patients have noticed it, they tell us in consultation,” explains cardiologist Jean Yvon Roudaut. They have the impression that the care in this hospital has made progress, we really feel a renewed confidence ”.
In the maternity ward, however, all is not yet completely rosy. If the existence and quality of this are no longer in doubt, the problem of the low number of annual births has still not been resolved. At the time of the mobilization, there was talk of a target of 400 deliveries. A result which is far from being achieved. Only 213 babies were born in 2011 in Carhaix, this is 22 less than in 2010. For the happy ending to be truly total, users must play along.
Listen to Bernard Dupond: “The choice to maintain the maternity hospital corresponds to the political options taken by the government. Now the patients’ confidence must return and that is longer.”
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