how consulting firms settled in the hospital

This is a tweet posted by a director of the consulting firm Capgemini, in July 2019, a few months before the country fell into the health crisis. The consultant says ” proud “ to have accompanied ” with success “ Nancy hospital and cites, in support, an article announcing that “the elimination of 179 beds and nearly 600 full-time equivalents in the workforce” at the Nancy University Hospital has just been approved by the public authorities.

Professor Stéphane Velut, neurosurgeon at the University Hospital of Tours, archived the message. Firstly because this plan, presented as remarkable in the summer of 2019, cost his post, in the spring of 2020, to the director of the regional health agency (ARS) Grand-Est. The latter had estimated, in the midst of the fight against the Covid-19, that there was ” no reason “ to interrupt the job and bed cuts at the Nancy hospital. A political misstep that the government sanctioned. Professor Velut has also followed this story closely, because, despite the acute crisis affecting the healthcare system, a similar cost reduction program awaits the CHU where he practices.

“It is planned that the Tours hospital, which has several sites, will be restructured and renovated. But the financing of this project, as it was presented to us in 2017, was subject to the elimination of 250 bedsexplains the neurosurgeon. To make us swallow this pill, we were treated to seminars organized by Capgemini. »

Read also: More than 5,700 full hospital beds closed in France in 2020, in the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic

The doctor did not know “not even that this profession – the consultants – existed. They explained to us that the hospital of tomorrow would be an “airport” – we come in, we operate, we go out – they used expressions like “capacity resizing” without telling us at the time that this would mean nearly 25% of beds in less “.

Young executives then explain to department heads that they can improve their practice, by comparing the average length of stay of patients at the Tours University Hospital with that of the Grenoble Hospital, which is much lower. “However, the activities are not comparable, Grenoble does more traumatology of the spineannoys the neurosurgeon. We were witnessing a brainwashing, so much so that after a few months, during a meeting of practitioners, we decided to oust Capgemini. » Since the start of the Covid-19 epidemic, the new hospital and the savings plan are no longer on the agenda, but “They will come back to it, warn the doctor. Simply, I understand they will remove fewer beds than originally planned”.

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