“With the Institute of Cancerology and Imagery (here), the Brest CHU becomes one of the best in Europe,” said Catherine Vautrin, the Minister of Health, just before the commissioning of this new equipment on the Cavale-Blanche website in April 2024. Sixteen months later, the radiotherapy service still seems far from having found its cruising rate. This is at least what a report of the nuclear security authority (ASNR) points out, following an unexpected inspection carried out on June 23. Their synthesis notably undertakes that, after an intense period linked to the move in brand new buildings, “the teams had to manage recurrent breakdowns of accelerators for several months”.
And while new projects have continued to be implemented (adaptive treatment, interstitial curiousherapy), this has coincided with the decline in staff, in particular due to the departure of a dosimetrist and absences over several months of manipulators in medical electroradiology (MERM). Not to mention the departure of the quality operational manager.
“Absences of stress -generating personnel”
If recruitments are planned, “the target is not currently reached. The density of the treatment schedule and the absences of staff lead to a daily update of the schedules, which is generating stress and tensions, ”notes the report.
Inspectors also note the non-compliance with regulatory or internal requirements in the process of empowering new arrivals, the lack of indicators allowing to objectify the activity, or an insufficient consideration of the analysis of the risks and the radiation protection issues.
An observation which gives water to the CGT mill. A week after the opening of the here, the union already evoked a reverse of the decor very different from the externally returned image. “The report of inspectors confirms all the alerts issued on several occasions on the degradation of working and safety conditions, both for patients and for professionals,” he also points out, by also denouncing “dysfunctional or even toxic management practices”.
“The safety of patients and professionals is not questioned”
While the CGT filed a strike notice on Thursday, August 21 for radiotherapy staff, the management of the Brest University Hospital rejects the alarmist assessment of the union. “The ASNR report does not at any time question the safety of patients or that of professionals. The observations made mainly relate to organizational and internal communication points, ”she said in a press release.
The CHU management indicates that it has initiated an action plan “aimed at supporting change and strengthening the fluidity of exchanges between professionals”. And, with the arrival of six radio manipulators and a full -time dosimetrist, “the radiotherapy workforce was revised and increased in accordance with ASNR requests. »»
A new visit to the body for the control of civil nuclear activities is scheduled in November 2025. By then, the management of the Brest hospital center has until August 23 to formalize its commitments to the ASNR on all the findings made by the inspectors.