According to a report published on October 31, 2024, 4,900 beds were eliminated in 2023. A figure which says a lot about the hospital crisis, and underlines the fact that certain promises have not been kept.
This is one of the symbols of the hospital crisis: nearly 4,900 full hospitalization beds (with overnight stay in the establishment) were eliminated in 2023, confirming a continued decline in supply, with 43 500 beds lost since the end of 2013, according to a Drees study published Thursday.
Several tens of thousands of beds
As of December 31, 2023, the 2,962 public, private and private non-profit hospitals had exactly 369,423 full hospitalization beds, or 4,867 beds less than in 2022 (-1.3%), according to the latest report. of the statistical department of social ministries (Drees).
At the same time, 3,489 partial hospitalization places – without overnight stay – were created (+ 4.1%), to reach a total of 88,504 places. Unlike a bed, a “place” day care can generally accommodate several daily patients.
The decline in the number of beds confirms according to the Drees “a trend observed for several years”, reflecting on the one hand the desire of the public authorities to “reorganize” care towards more “ambulatory”, but also staff shortages, which “cannot maintain” all beds open.
Since the end of 2013, health establishments have lost 43,500 full hospitalization beds, representing a reduction in supply of 10.5% in ten years. Some 20,900 partial hospitalization places were created at the same time (+ 31%).
The decline in full hospitalization capacity has been “more rapid” over the last four years than before the health crisis: it decreased by around 0.9% per year on average over the period 2013-2019.
Constant erosion
The promise of former Minister of Health Aurélien Rousseau in the fall of 2023 to “reopen several thousand beds by the end of the year”was therefore not held. If the beds close, “it’s not for budgetary reasons”but by “lack of attractiveness” care professions, he then assured.
The decrease, however, is “less marked” in 2023 than in 2022, a year in which establishments lost more than 6,700 full hospitalization beds.
Drees further notes, in 2023, a marked decline in psychiatric beds (-2.4%), mainly in the public sector.
On the other hand, home hospitalization care capacities continue to increase (+ 4.1%) to reach 24,100 patients treated simultaneously in the territory.
Widely denounced by health stakeholders, the collapse in the number of beds has been almost constant since the beginning of the 2000s, according to data available on the Irdes website (Institute for Research and Documentation in Health Economics) .
The number of hospital sites also continues to decrease “under the effect of reorganizations and restructuring” (-160 public or private establishments between 2013 and 2023, i.e. – 5.1%), with a greater drop in the public than the private sector.
Budget debate
Caregivers regularly criticize these bed closures, which saturate services, put pressure on teams and increase tensions in emergency departments, causing more and more professionals to flee the hospital.
These figures are published in the middle of a parliamentary debate on the 2025 social security budget for which the government wants to contain the deficit to 16 billion euros compared to 18 billion in 2024.
The increase in health spending dedicated to the hospital sector will be limited to + 3.1%, far from the + 6% necessary, according to the French Hospital Federation (FHF, public sector).
Four unions in the health sector (CGT, FO, Sud and Unsa) have for their part filed a strike notice running from November 4 to December 21 to protest against this budget.
The left, for its part, intends to have the National Assembly vote, by December, on a proposed PS law – already validated by the Senate – to set a minimum number of caregivers per patient in hospital.
