Marisol Touraine guaranteed the reopening of the emergency rooms in Valognes (Manche) under the best conditions, starting in September.
As at the Hôtel-Dieu de Paris in the past, the situation in the emergency department of Valognes (Manche) is tense over the days. Thus, nearly 2,000 people demonstrated this Saturday morning in this town of nearly 7,000 inhabitants to express their opposition to the closure, since August 6, of the emergency department of the Valognes site which belongs to the Cotentin Public Hospital (Lower Normandy).
60,000 inhabitants impacted
Among the demonstrators, numbering 2,500 according to the organizers, and 1,700 according to the police, were approximately 150 local elected officials, notably from the neighboring municipalities of Valognes, also affected by the closure.
Indeed, the 60,000 affected residents must now go to the Cherbourg emergency room, 25 minutes by car from Valognes.
Worse still, the area concerned experiences a significant influx of tourists in the summer, especially on the Allied Landing beaches (Normandy). A temporary situation which does not help in this conflict which is bogged down.
The ARS evokes “a shortage of doctors”
To understand the origin of this so controversial decision, Agence France Presse (AFP) explains that the closure of the Valognes emergency room was taken, on a temporary basis, by theRegional Health Agency (ARS) Basse-Normandie which justifies it by a shortage of doctors preventing, according to her, a good functioning of the service.
Opponents, them, denounce a “lack of consultation”. They fear that this closure will be final. They mention in particular a government plan to close all emergency services welcoming less than 15,000 patients per year.
Marisol Touraine tries to reassure
A well-founded accusation? Not sure, because in a letter sent this Friday to the mayor (DVD) of Valognes, Jacques Coquelin, the Minister of Health, Marisol Touraine, assured “that no budgetary consideration was taken into account in the decisions of suspension of activity ”, and that it had asked the ARS, in conjunction with the hospital, to“ guarantee (the) reopening (of the emergency department) in the best conditions, starting in September “.
For the moment, only the mobile emergency and resuscitation service (SMUR) of the hospital has resumed its activity on August 15. Pending further progress, a petition opposing the closure has already collected 10,000 signatures.
Its initiators (the Citizen’s Association for the Defense of the Hospital Center) hope to collect twice as much by the time it is handed over to the ARS in Caen on September 11.
Finally, six municipalities and the CGT union filed on August 20, before the administrative court of Caen, an appeal against the closure of emergencies. The hearing date is not yet known.
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