Suffering hospital nurses

An SOS formed by nurses in white coats lying on the ground. The symbol was strong enough this Wednesday, September 14 in Martigues, in the Bouches-du-Rhône, to express the distress of a profession. This mobilization of nurses sounds like a cry of despair launched at the address of the government, while caregivers are experiencing more and more badly the deterioration of their working conditions.

To denounce the situation, a call for a national strike had been launched by the national nursing coordination (CNI), one of the main unions in the profession. During this strike day, the nurses observed a minute of silence in tribute to the five nurses who committed suicide this summer. Strikers were also called upon to wear a black armband to mark the mourning and suffering of a profession. Because the cases of suicide illustrate a malaise that is spreading among nurses. “Four years ago, I considered committing suicide” testified Mylène on France Bleu Provence. The more we are tired, the less we work correctly and the more we devalue ourselves, it’s the infernal loop”.

“We want to manage the public hospital like a business”

“Suffering, we see it grow every day and on all scales”, confirms Patricia Calmettes, member of the CGT at the Rangueil hospital in Toulouse during a press briefing organized on Monday. A feeling of “dehumanization” wins nurses in the face of increasingly stifling professional constraintswith overloaded schedules, increasingly precarious statuses and non-renewed positions. The fatigue, the weariness grows among these men and women who are asked to work more with less means and without compensation, according to the CNI.

“What I don’t understand is that we want to manage the public hospital like a business, and we are not worried about its absenteeism rate and the cost it involves, denounces at the microphone of France Bleu Nathalie Depoire, president of the national nursing coordination (CNI), one of the main unions in the profession, at the origin of the call for the strike on Wednesday.We really have to remedy the cause of these absences and there, we’ll save money.”

Health Minister Marisol Touraine has promised announcements in the fall to respond to the concerns of the profession.

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