“No air conditioning and over 35°C in the room at Montpellier University Hospital”: patients are outraged, management responds

Les températures élevées compliquent la récupération des patients. DR – DR

Two elderly patients complained about the very high temperature in the hospital. Management has initiated a vast plan that will be gradually implemented.

Aged 77, Guylaine will not soon forget her three-week stay at CHU Saint-Éloi. “I was diagnosed with kidney cancer and had a tumor removed at the Clinique du Millénaire”, explains this woman from Frontignan.

“I had a stent inserted but I had excruciating pain in my bladder and I was hemorrhaging. I lost 9 kg. Since the cancer was progressive, I was hospitalized at the CHU Saint-Éloi”.

Very weakened, the septuagenarian saw her "ordeal" continue. "There was no air conditioning in the room and it was over 35 °C. We had to leave the curtain separating the two beds open to get a little air from the window."

"It got even more complicated when they put a woman next to me who was suffering from a contagious disease. The curtain was closed and I had to wear a duckbill mask (FFP2). I was suffocating".

Guylaine also testifies to "meals with dishes that were supposed to be fresh and that arrived lukewarm or hot", to “bags of urine and blood mixed together that leaked because they were unsuitable for the clinic's catheters”, from the “overwhelmed staff who could be very nice or catastrophic, depending on the case”.

“As soon as they removed the catheter, I left, adds Guylaine. But because of the conditions of the hospitalization, I had fungus from my mouth to my stomach that earned me seven days of antibiotics when I was released. Nearly two weeks later, I am just starting to eat normally again."

Unions: “No patients rented air conditioning this summer”

"In recent years, we have triggered alerts for our agents at due to high heat in the premises,testify Karin Croiser and Jérôme Bencivengo, assistant secretaries FO CHU. The deputy general manager told us that the premises were dilapidated. We are aware of the structural problems that prevent the generalization of air conditioning. He also informed us of technical problems with external service providers. In the meantime, mobile air conditioning systems are being set up here and there, but this is not possible everywhere. Solar films have also been installed (especially in oncology and maternity) but it only saves 2 or 3 °C, which is not much when it is 40 °C outside. It is often on the floors that the temperatures are the highest."

"Portable air conditioners installed in psychiatry"

On the side of the CGT, we immediately specify having received “fewer calls from patients and families to complain about the heat this summer, compared to previous years. No one rented air conditioning to put it in a room, as was the case in 2023. There was indeed an alert on psychiatry, which we relayed to management. This one quickly has portable air conditioners."

“We are aware that it is impossible to generalize air conditioning in hospitals, because the networks do not allow it. In Arnaud-de-Villeneuve, where the situation is most critical, especially for pregnant women, this will not be possible for a few years. But adjustments are gradually being made.”

“The patients and staff are exhausted”

Françoise, who lives in Agde, also complained about the conditions of her husband's hospitalization at the university hospital this summer. “He underwent open-heart surgery for a mitral valve replacement”, she wrote to us three days later.

“He is in cardiac surgery on the fourth floor, under the roof. The temperature in the rooms is 35 °C. No air conditioning (for ten days after the operation), three fans blowing hot air. The patients and staff are exhausted. I wish they would rent portable air conditioners. I am outraged, these are patients, not holidaymakers.” The management of the CHU responded to him (read below).

CHU: “New services at the end of the year”

Director General of the CHU, Anne Ferrer had responded to the wife of the patient who had suffered from the intense heat in his room at Arnaud-de-Villeneuve, following his operation.

“The Montpellier University Hospital has not undergone any major modernization of the Lapeyronie and Arnaud de Villeneuve building since its construction,”60~/em> “writes Anne Ferrer. The effort has focused on the biomedical equipment which is particularly remarkable for a referral medicine.”