Marmande-Tonneins Hospital: “Before demanding financial balance, the State must pay its debts!”

Responding to a national call, the association Urgences: Accès aux soins pour tous (Urgencies: Access to Care for All) is calling for a demonstration on October 1st. The group fears injunctions "to return to balance" for the institution in a situation of indebtedness. A "dangerous" situation according to the group

"Asking the hospital to return to financial balance, in a medical desert, is cutting the last branch we are sitting on," thunders Michel Céruti, president of the collective Urgences: access to care for all .

The association is joining a national demonstration to oppose "the accounting logic imposed on our hospital," as the Bayrou government plans an austerity budget for 2026. The meeting is scheduled for October 1 at 5 p.m. in front of the Marmande-Tonneins Intercommunal Hospital Center (Chic MT). "Hospitals should not have to bear the cost of adjusting public finances..."

In Marmande, there is even more concern since the departure of the director, Philippe Meyer, and the potential administration of the establishment.

Like "57% of healthcare establishments in Nouvelle-Aquitaine," the Chic MT is in financial imbalance. Since 2020, it has accumulated "a deficit of €19 million, including €9 million in 2024 (less €5.5 million in aid from the ARS)," the collective claims. A hole that has grown with expenses related to the Covid crisis, the establishment of vaccination centers, and the increase in caregivers' salaries, "which have only been marginally offset," Michel Céruti emphasizes.

Urgences: access to care for all therefore proposes compensation for these costs and the elimination of the payroll tax levied by the State (estimated at 4.5 million euros) to redress the accounts of Chic MT.

"Before demanding financial balance, the State must pay its debts," the communist activist berates, recalling Jean Castex's broken promise to erase the hospital's debt during his visit to Lot-et-Garonne in 2021. "The financial situation of the Marmande hospital is therefore not the result of a particular management problem," argues the group, which points, on the contrary, to the development of the hospital's "attractiveness."

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