Medical interns: safety rest under threat

The medical interns saw it as a bad trick played on them by the Ministry of Health. While the reform of the working time (1) of these future doctors is in the process of being applied, the Inter Syndicat National des Internes (ISNI) warns this Wednesday on the introduction of the concept of exemption to safety rest. This is an 11-hour break that a medical intern must take at the end of each night shift.

Specifically, this exemption may be drawn up by the establishment management, in particular after a Friday or Sunday penalty. A first that the union indicates to have learned “fortuitously” during the publication in the Official Journal (JO) of a circular implementing this decree.

Patient care threatened?

For the President of the Organization, Baptiste Boukebous, this small flaw in the safety rest constitutes “an opportunity for a variable adjustment of the number of medical personnel”, he confided to Why actor. On this subject, he therefore wonders what has happened to Marisol Touraine’s recent words referring to the interns “who are not a staff who can thank you.”

ISNI is therefore strongly opposed to this measure and recalls that rest following permanent care is not just a union achievement. “It is also, as its name suggests, a necessary condition for the safety of caregivers and the proper care of patients,” he wrote in a press release.
A survey conducted by ISNI in 2012 showed that 15% of residents questioned declared having made medical errors in prescription, diagnosis or even an operative act on the day after on-call and more than 39% believed that they had them. probably carried out without asserting it with certainty.

Listen…

Baptiste Boukebous, president of ISNI: ” The problem is that the derogation as described gives full powers to management and the COPS (2) … “

Like a feeling of betrayal

In addition, ISNI denounces the lack of consultation on the part of the Ministry of Health and the General Directorate for the provision of care (DGOS) in the drafting of this circular. He claims that at no time was he aware of its final content.
Likewise, these interns deplore the delays in the publication of several texts framing their status, “despite repeated and insistent requests from the ISNI”, for example on the excess number of pregnant women interns during an internship.
These delays put many interns in complicated situations, sometimes forced to do the work understaffed because of absences.

The threat of a strike

For all these reasons, ISNI directly calls on Marisol Touraine “on the need for a revision of this circular as soon as possible and recalls that it will defend safety rest by all means”.
Baptiste Boukebous affirms that the interns will do “everything possible” to ensure that this acquis is respected. And for him, all options remain on the table, “both the strike and the disobedience of interns, if this exemption is applied.”
The interns of the ISNI will be over next Monday, when they will be received by the Council of Ministers.

(1) A decree of the Ministry of Health, published on February 26, 2015 in the Official Journal, limits the working time of interns in medicine, dentistry and pharmacy, to 48 hours per week, in accordance with European regulations.

(2) Commission for the Organization of On-call Care

#Internal : The safety rest threatened by a circular – Anger of @ISNItwit https://t.co/ZgEv4pfOFG #health pic.twitter.com/79RLLaKCfg

– Pourquoidocteur (@Pourquoidocteur) January 20, 2016