In emergencies, “the situation is more serious than last summer” in France, said Tuesday August 15 Marc Noizet, president of SAMU-Urgences de France, stressing that all departments are affected, but also tourist areas in high season. .

“The situation is more serious than last summer, because it now affects all departments of France, large services and small services. Last summer, we had red zones ”, declared on Europe 1 the one who is also head of the emergency department of the hospital group of the region of Mulhouse and South Alsace.

For Marc Noizet, “the novelty is that extremely touristy areas (…) are today in very, very precarious conditions”, citing Les Sables-d’Olonne, in Vendée, or Arcachon, in Gironde, “where they were forced to set up a structure in the parking lot in front of the hospital where doctors do minor traumatology to alleviate emergencies”, or even Saint-Tropez, in the Var, “which almost closed its emergency department”.

“More pernicious”, according to him, “we close SMUR [mobile emergency and resuscitation service] sometimes for a night or a weekend”; these are ambulances staffed by doctors who travel to homes or on public roads. “For example, around Angers, this long weekend, with the August 15 bridge, seven SMURs are closed, but it affects vital emergencies,” he added.

Head of the Hauts-de-Seine SMUR, Gilles Jourdain also “launched the alert” in Le Parisien on Tuesday afternoon, stating in particular that his team had to transfer a two-month-old infant to Rouen on Sunday, for lack of intensive care beds. pediatrics in Île-de-France. “His bronchiolitis was getting worse, the little boy needed to be admitted to intensive care. The teams went three times around the places available in the five departments in Île-de-France with the necessary skills for this type of care. Nothing, zero bed,” he said.

“Any reinforcements we could muster were”

For Doctor Jourdain: “The tensions in nursing staff are so strong that the degraded situation of winter persists and is felt again in the summer. The authorities seem unable to provide a solution. In the emergency room, as elsewhere in the hospital, “all the reinforcements that we were able to mobilize were”, and “the regulation of the remuneration of temporary workers did a lot of harm, even if it was a necessary evil “said the president of SAMU-Urgences de France on the radio.

As for the medical regulation assistants (ARM), the first to pick up calls to the SAMU, and on strike in more than two thirds of the departmental “centres 15”, “they are poorly paid, have problems with career advancement and adequacy of their numbers to the flow,” he explained. “There is a real problem, the minister recognizes it, now things should move forward,” said Marc Noizet.

Visiting the Toulouse SAMU on Monday, the Minister of Health, Aurélien Rousseau, declared that “some” of the demands of the striking ARMs were “legitimate” and that he intended “to work on it in the next few weeks”.