AP-HP patients refused intensive care, 1,300 fewer positions in 2011

Written by Sandeep Nehra

Intensive care units of hospitals in Paris were forced to refuse patients, according to an alarm sounded on Tuesday by the Movement for Defense of Public Hospital (MDHP), worried about job losses which he estimated at 1,300 in 2011 AP-HP.

“There are big problems in intensive care units who refused a large number of patients the weekend,” he told AFP MDHP secretary, Bernard Granger, without citing figures, but citing the hospitals Bicêtre (Kremlin-Bicetre, Val de Marne), Cochin (Paris 6) and Louis Mourier (Colombes, Hauts de Seine).

The saturation of the critical care of all these institutions belonging to the Assistance Publique-Hôpitaux de Paris (AP-HP) is due to the current epidemics of influenza and pneumonia, “said Granger.

“These are tensions that we know each winter but it occurs in a context of medico-economic constraints that make it are beds closed because of problems recruiting carers and obtaining sufficient allocations, “he told AFP Professor Christian Richard, leader of the resuscitation department of Bicêtre.

“Even a dozen caged beds may have an impact on fluidity,” he said, explaining that patients should be redirected to other institutions, with the risks that entails. “We do not doom but we want to raise awareness on the fact that we are in a very constrained,” he added.

The MDHP, which consists primarily of faculty and clinicians, whose UMP Parisian doctor Bernard Debre, had already warned in October about the overcrowding emergency services, after the problems of nurses in the hospital Tenon ( Paris 20e).

And for 2011, the movement believes that the Paris hospitals should generally save about 1,300 job cuts, mostly non-medical staff positions, after having set its own calculations based on the 2011 budget documents from the direction of the AP- HP.

In view of 53.35 million euros to save on non-medical staff and the average annual cost of a member of the staff rated at 40,000 euros, this amounts to 1,334 fewer jobs, “said Mr. Granger, that CFO AP-HP have already mentioned that figure.

Contacted by AFP, the direction of the AP-HP said it had “never spoken of job cuts” in its budget documents.

“You have to read between the lines,” Mr. Granger replied, acknowledging that the word job cuts are not delivered.

The previous leadership of the AP-HP had indicated that the reorganization plan, including the establishment of 12 hospital groups involving 37 institutions, could result in the removal of 3 to 4,000 jobs over the period 2010-2014.

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