Pay rates for medical temporary workers in public hospitals in France have been capped with effect from yesterday, reports Le Monde. This means temporary doctors at the hospital can no longer be paid more than what the law provides, i.e., €1,390 for a twenty-four-hour shift. Minister of Health and Prevention François Braun said he promised to put an end to ‘cannibalistic temporary work’ and its ‘excesses’, up to €4,000 euros, even €5,000 gross for twenty-four hours , ‘which will mark the death of our public hospital service in the short term’.

The National Union of Hospital Replacement Physicians, which is campaigning against this cap, estimates that 167 services are ‘threatened with imminent closure’ in around a hundred hospitals, most of them located in small or medium-sized towns. “We are determined to refuse any ceiling,” warned its president, emergency physician Eric Reboli.

Meanwhile, the unions of hospital practitioners are eyeing the potential savings on temporary work, which costs hospitals €1.5 billion each year, and are asking the government to open wage negotiations. "We must restore the attractiveness of hospital medicine,” said Thierry Godeau, president of the National Conference of Medical Commissions for hospital establishments.