The pediatric surgery department of Montpellier University Hospital on strike this Monday

Au service de pédiatrie du CHU de Montpellier. Prod. Rédacteurs MDL – SGUIRAUD

The inter-union protests against the elimination of 3 beds during the week and 6 beds on weekends, as well as three childcare worker positions and one childcare assistant, planned by management of the University Hospital.

Anger is brewing at the CHU after management's decisions which closed three beds per week and six on weekends in pediatric surgery. Three childcare worker positions and one childcare assistant were also eliminated.

"On the weekend, there will be one childcare worker for ten to eleven children while the Ministry of Health recommends one for four to five children. This is abuse", rise up FO, CGT, CFDT and Unsa, united as an inter-union for the first time since the pension reform.

The twenty-seven people in the service will be on strike, starting Monday. "The doctors are also very supportive", testify the union delegates. And even if the staff will be requisitioned, "this is a movement of rare magnitude at the CHU".

"The hospital favors savings to the detriment of a service which welcomes 2,500 children per year. It is all the more dismaying that we have had no response from management. If they want staff in gynecology, all they have to do is recruit."

Management: “No positions eliminated at the Women, Mothers, Children's Center”

"The Montpellier University Hospital is concerned with constantly adapting its organization to accommodate, in a renewed approach to quality and safety of care, the patients who trust it", explains the general management of the University Hospital in a press release.

"To meet its needs, the Women, Mothers, Children's Center will be extended by the construction of a new building. The first phase of new gynecological surgery blocks has been delivered and a new generation surgical robot has been completing this technical platform since the beginning of June."

"This continuous adaptation also requires paying attention to the occupancy of the hospitalization capacities of the different services making up the Women, Mothers and Children division. This occupation varies according to the services, with the progression of outpatient activity and new activities which are developing there. The University Hospital thus ensures the allocation of human resources between the services constituting the center, with a view to the safety of care, equity between units and the quality of the organizations. It is within this framework that it was decided to add 10.2 positions to the gynecological surgery department, whose activity must be supported, by mobilizing 4.5 surgical positions pediatric."

"No job cuts are taking place within the division, which will on the contrary be reinforced with new human resources, to support its development.&quot ;

“Support for the teams concerned is underway. They have been met several times. The project will be presented to the Social and Economic Committee of the CHU, first for information to allow for dialogue, then for advice at a future meeting. As part of the strike notice filed on June 26 by four union organizations, a new consultation meeting is scheduled for July 1."

"Social dialogue has disappeared"

"It is all the more unfair for pediatric surgery staff since they had been trained in pain management", the unions deplore.

"Management has chosen to force through its reform, without even consulting us. Since the new general manager arrived, the social dialogue that was part of the CHU tradition has disappeared."

The unions had planned to speak at the supervisory board meeting on Thursday, June 27. They are calling on all staff and users to gather on Tuesday, July 2 at 8 a.m. in the main courtyard of the supervisory board of the Colombière hospital. A petition against the measures taken has gathered more than 5,700 signatures.