Representatives of hospital workers deplored on Thursday the "bad faith" and "denial" of the Minister Delegate for Health, according to whom the situation in emergency rooms is slightly better this summer than in 2023, and for their part denounced the growing "collapse" of the system.
Endless waiting times on stretchers, rolling closures: like every summer, emergency services are suffering from a chronic lack of staff, which is crying out during the holiday period. On Tuesday, the Minister Delegate for Health Frederic Valletoux estimated that around "fifty" French hospitals "are currently under pressure". "It's a little better than last summer" and better than in 2022, he estimated.
"Perhaps the minister is still under the euphoric effect of the Olympic Games atmosphere," the Action Practitioners Hospital coalition (APH, 14 practitioners' unions) ironized in a press release on Thursday, awarding him the "gold medal for bad faith."
"The health situation in our country is continuing its programmed deterioration" and this does not only concern "emergency services", continues APH, mentioning "closed Smur (mobile emergency and resuscitation service) lines, with delays in treatment for vital emergencies" or even numerous bed closures in the services.
The situation has become "endemic except at one site: the Olympic Games clinic," she says.
"While some politicians are showing a satisfied beat, professionals (...) are no longer observing a deterioration but a collapse of our health system," concludes APH.
In an interview with Libération, the president of the Samu Urgences de France (SUDF) union, Marc Noizet, also contested the figure given by the minister, which he considered to be "largely underestimated", and denounced "the usual ministerial communication intended to reassure public opinion".
According to a union survey, "during the summer of 2023, one in two services had to close at least one emergency line" and "70% of the Smur" had operated in degraded mode.
"The situation was no better this summer," and university hospitals were affected, "such as in Le Havre, Caen, Rennes, Bordeaux and Grenoble. Laval, a large emergency department, will even have to close at night in September. This has never happened before. The difficulties are widespread and greater than ever," assures Mr. Noizet.
SUDF will publish its annual survey on these summer closures in mid-September.
According to a recent study (Inserm, APHP, Universities of Rouen and the Sorbonne), spending a night on a stretcher increases the risk of hospital mortality by almost 40% for patients over 75 years old.
English 
French