When the 1er March, Martin Hirsch, the director of the Hospitals of Paris, asks the elected officials of Saint-Ouen and Seine-Saint-Denis, to “A declaration of love for this future hospital” rather “That a declaration of doubt”, he knows that he has the support of the new socialist mayor of the city, Karim Bouamrane, who leads this extraordinary municipal council dedicated to the future CHU Grand Paris Nord.
There are many debates around this hospital campus project, resulting from the merger of the Bichat and Beaujon hospitals, which is due to move north of the ring road by 2028. But Karim Bouamrane has decided to believe in the promises of“Public service commitment” of the AP-HP and to seize this project to accelerate the transition of a territory long relegated to unrewarding functions.
It must be said that this suburban town, 53,000 inhabitants – 65,000 in ten years – has not been spoiled by history. Everything we did not want elsewhere has been piled up here: a cemetery, the pound, the scrap yards, a waste sorting center, the district heating plant, and factories, including PSA, which must sell, by the end of the year, his plot to Public Assistance.
An animation role
For some time now, the situation has changed. The region has left the very chic 7e borough to set up its headquarters in the ZAC des Docks; a stone’s throw away, part of the Olympic village of Paris 2024 is being built. To the east, 5,500 DGSI officials are expected on the former site of the Parisian, where the state must create its city of internal intelligence. And, therefore, there is this future CHU, with its doctors, its caregivers, its 12,500 students, and all the hopes that are placed on them.
Developing an economy around health, promoting the installation of professionals in a basin that is severely lacking in health and offering, thanks to hospital professions, prospects for young people in the city is the number one obsession of elected officials. But if the university succeeds in its integration, it can also play a real role of animation. “Students, it brings life in the middle of the day, security, there are cultural initiatives, and they consume”, details Jean-Claude Gaillot, specialist in sustainable development, and who heads, for the regional prefecture, the operational monitoring committee of the CHU.
However, questions remain about the real impact that the hospital will have on public transport. On paper, the campus is very well served (metro lines 13 and 14, RER C), and this was also one of the prerequisites not to reproduce the error of the Georges-Pompidou European hospital. But will this be enough not to saturate again line 13, the closest to the site? In its opinion delivered on April 21, the environmental authority insists, moreover, that the project anticipates the bicycle boom even more.
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