24 hours at 5000 euros, it ends in the public hospital. Seven years after its approval, this Monday the text of the law that limits the amount of guards to 1,390 euros gross for 24 hours comes into force. The Government wants to end the abuses of “mercenaries”, those temporary doctors who ask public establishments to align themselves with the highest remuneration in the private sector to accept a contract. But in hospitals, there are fears that lower salaries will scare doctors away.
Put an end to the “interim cannibal”
In October 2022, the Minister of Health, François Braun, promised to put an end to “cannibal temporary work” and its “drifts” – up to 4,000 or even 5,000 euros gross for 24 hours depending on the time of year – “which in the short term means the death of our public hospital service”. These comments were seen as a declaration of war by some temporary workers, some of whom are now threatening to refuse to work.
“Working conditions have become very difficult. The hospital doctors are the ones who are underpaid, it’s not the temporary worker who is overpaid,” testifies an interim anesthesiologist.
Many interim doctors, however, take advantage of the lack of weapons in the establishments to assert their claims: sometimes, very high salaries that hospitals have no choice but to accept to operate their services. “
“These are people who have been offered contracts for so many euros in another establishment and who come to see us saying ‘look, we have such a proposal so either you queue up or we do it elsewhere,'” David Trouchaud confides to BFMTV. , general manager of the Collines de Normandie hospital group, in Orne.
The possibility of negotiating their compensation has convinced many doctors to lay off: they now represent 12% of all practitioners.
Service closure risk
Could temporary workers with degraded wages flee the hospital? The union of hospital substitute doctors (SNMRH) has identified 167 services “threatened of imminent closure” in a hundred hospitals, most located in small or medium-sized towns. Non-exhaustive list where no specialty is spared: surgery, pediatrics, psychiatry…
“We are determined to reject any ceiling,” warns its president, the emergency doctor Éric Reboli, no matter how lonely he is in the medical community. In fact, unions for hospital professionals are considering the potential savings in the interim, which costs hospitals $1.5 billion each year, and are calling on the government to open wage negotiations.
“We must restore the attractiveness of hospital medicine”, also pleads Thierry Godeau, president of the national conference of medical commissions of hospital establishments. On behalf of his colleagues at 750 public hospitals, he wants to “talk about guards, shifts” or even “double overtime pay.”
Demand supported by the College of Physicians, which judges at the same time that “certain excessive practices (…) no longer have an ethical reason” and calls on casual workers and “hospital administration” to “respect tact and moderation”. in remuneration”.
The Syncass-CFDT hospital directors, the leading union among these senior officials, hope “to be able to count on the support of the State”, so that none of their colleagues find themselves “alone to assume the closure of a service due to lack”. of practitioners accepting the rates set by the texts”.
Source: BFM TV
