One after another, they tell their ” Fed up “. Fanny (like all the nurses met, she did not wish to give her name), 34, is a liberal nurse in Megève (Haute-Savoie). “In five years, I stop”, she says, tired. Then Martine, Lydie, Marjolaine, Alexandre, they all repeat it, each time like a heartbreaker. ” We are fed up “breathes Lydie, nurse in Cluses, fourth city of the department.
The local primary health insurance fund (CPAM74) has set up, with the agreement of the trade unions representing the profession (which is itself very little unionized), a new system of remuneration for mileage costs for private nurses in the department, which, according to Lydie, has “wake the sleeping serpent”.
A strike was organized from December 2 to 4, then from December 9 to 11, another is planned for the entire period of the Christmas holidays. On those days, private nurses provide continuity of care for regular patients, but do not accept any others.
According to these professionals, depending on their geographical location, in urban areas or in the mountains, this new protocol would cause them up to 40% loss of income, and ” it’s not possible “. The CPAM74 affirms that the new rules – with a now single price per kilometer, mountain area or not – are globally “more advantageous”, more in line with the upward trend in the population protected by the general social security system and the density of nurses in the department. But it also recognizes pay cuts in some cases.
A dialogue of the deaf took place with the nurses, each reproaching the other party for a poor assessment of the situation.
” Difficult conditions “
Liberal nurses readily admit it: the problem is actually deeper. “We are upset with this change in the payment of mileage allowances, but in reality, what we are asking for is to be better paid for work done in difficult conditions in mountain areas, and not with bonuses on which we do not contribute »admits Marjolaine, a liberal nurse based in Taninges. “In one hour, you can see four or five patients in the mountains. In the valley, it’s twice as much, assesses Martine, a nurse in Passy, near Chamonix. If there is no compensation, the nurses will leave and no one will want to come and work in the mountains. »
The department of Haute-Savoie may well be one of the richest in France, with a population that can increase by a million in the middle of the tourist season, here and there medical deserts emerge. In Chamonix, doctors no longer take new patients, with some exceptions. In Cluse, “People go to the emergency room of the clinic to renew their prescriptions, says Lydie. There is no alternative. » In La Clusaz and Le Grand-Bornand, there will be no more liberal nurses within a year.
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