At the call of two unions, 25 emergency reception services of the Assistance Publique-Hôpitaux de Paris (AP-HP) have announced that they will go on indefinite strike from the evening of Sunday April 14. They denounce “unbearable” working conditions and demand better recognition of the specificity of their work.
To make their demands heard, the emergency services of the Assistance Publique-Hôpitaux de Paris (AP-HP) have decided to strike.
At the call of two unions, including the CGT, the nurses and nursing assistants of the emergency services decided to join the strike movement which began in mid-March at the Saint-Antoine hospital following a series of attacks on hospital staff. The movement will be followed in the hospitals of Pitié-Salpêtrière, Lariboisière, Saint-Louis, Tenon and Robert Debré from Sunday evening midnight and will also be followed on Monday April 15. It could also last the following days, since the unions have called for an indefinite strike.
“Unbearable” working conditions
The demands of the striking personnel are multiple. They are initially demanding an improvement in their working conditions, with an increase in salaries and an increase in the number of staff to relieve the increase in attendance at emergency services, estimated at 3% per year. “The agents denounce their working conditions which have become unbearable”, explains the CGT in a press release.
“We are always asked to do more with less, we have to manage twenty to twenty-five more passages per day than in 2015 at constant staff”, adds in The world Orianne Plumet, a 25-year-old nurse, has been in the emergency room at Pitié-Salpêtrière for more than three years.
In a letter sent Tuesday, April 9 to the two unions, the director general of the AP-HP Martin Hirsch promised the creation of 45 new positions for all 39 hospitals. A far too insufficient measure, judge Rose-May Rousseau, leader of the CGT at the AP-HP. “That’s barely one job per hospital, that can’t be enough,” she laments at the Parisian.
A deterioration in the quality of care
According to the unions, this situation leads to a sharp deterioration in the care of patients and in the quality of care. Last December, a 55-year-old woman was found dead in the emergency waiting area of Lariboisière hospital. She had been waiting for twelve hours and still had not been seen by a doctor.
The strikers are also demanding recognition for their work, in particular through the establishment of a monthly bonus of 300 euros. “Today hospitals have difficulty recruiting for these services because it has become an untenable job,” explains the World Hugo Huon, nurse at Lariboisière.
Another demand: to ensure the safety of emergency personnel and protect them against attacks by patients. “Security should not be taken care of by security guards but by trained personnel authorized to intervene in contact with aggressors or agitated patients”, claims Rose-May Rousseau.
General strike over Easter weekend
Pending negotiations with representatives of management, unions and other staff spokespersons on Monday 15 April, emergency services will continue to operate on minimum service. The striking caregivers will be provided with an armband and pickets will be installed in front of the hospitals.
The mobilization is unlikely to weaken since eight AP-HP unions (CGT, SUD, FO, CFDT, CFTC, CFE-CGC, Unsa, SMPS) also filed a strike notice on Friday for the weekend of Easter, between Thursday April 18 9 p.m. and Saturday April 20 7 a.m. This movement should concern all staff, who are calling for “real negotiations”, on salaries, working conditions and restructuring of the AP-HP. The unions are calling in particular for “an end to the closures of services […]savings plans and job cuts” and claim “the tenure of contract workers”, a “revaluation” of wages and a budget “at the height of the needs of the population”.
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