A dizzying deficit is emerging: around one hundred million euros for the Marseille Public Assistance Hospitals (AP-HM). “We have real concerns”, recognizes the crisis-experienced head of the hospital juggernaut in the southeast, François Crémieux. Like the thirty university hospitals (CHU), which warned of unprecedented deficits at the end of January, their accounts have also collapsed.
From a deficit of 52 million euros in 2022, AP-HM will have a deficit of 117 million in 2023, according to the hospital group’s forecasts. At a press conference on February 5, its leaders called for one “Extraordinary support” of the State, while the institution in Marseille, whose budget is 1.8 billion euros, is just resuming its colors two years after the end of the Covid-19 crisis. Thanks to a successful nursing recruitment campaign, AP-HM has managed to reopen almost all of its medical, surgical, obstetrics and pediatrics “beds” since the end of December. And its activity is finally approaching that of 2019.
How can this decline be explained? Inflation, inflation, inflation: Marie Deugnier, the general secretary who oversees administrative services from purchasing to finance to human resources, can illustrate at all levels that costs are exploding. “It’s not just about heating or electricity, points the finger at the 44-year-old manager, who is housed in the administrative rooms next to Conception, one of the AP-HM hospitals. We are like a household, we have many other consumer goods and services. » A household with 500 million euros in purchases per year! Increase in operational costs for IT and maintenance of biomedical equipment (MRI, scanners, ventilators, etc.); the cost of the vehicle fleet, medical and pharmaceutical goods, food purchases… Inflation accounted for 25 million euros of the current deficit, estimates the Marseille University Hospital.
The consequences are already there and cash flow is affected: many suppliers can no longer meet payment deadlines. With an average of 50 days, they are now recording peaks of 120 days, this summer it could be 150 days. “We preserve essential purchases, but it is extremely good administration on a daily basis, describes the person responsible. Financial difficulties have hidden costs: much more cumbersome administrative processes, constant arbitration procedures… and during this time we do nothing else. »
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