The hospital center inaugurated this Friday morning the representatives of the users, by the installation of the cardboard silhouettes formalizing their existence.
Appointed for 3 years by the Regional Health Agency (ARS) after being proposed by approved health associations, Catherine Simonin and Christine Tailhades are the representatives of the users (RU) holders of the Montauban hospital. They ensure the representation of patients and users of the health system, ensure that their rights are respected and are their spokespersons.
Sébastien Massip, director of the Montauban hospital, emphasizes the importance of their role: “By sitting on committees such as the food-nutrition liaison committee (Clan), or the Committee for the fight against nosocomial infections (Clin), the RU can escalate complaints from patients, about the quality of the food or the infections they have contracted in the establishment, for example. Their role has existed for about ten years but is still too little known. At the request of the ministry , we are therefore promoting their existence with the installation of these cardboard silhouettes in the reception hall. This demonstrates the desire to open up even more to users.”
A commitment that makes sense
The arrival of these RUs is no accident. Indeed, Catherine Simonin, proposed in this post by the national league against cancer, an association in which she has been involved since she was a victim of this disease, defends access to health and the re-inclusion of sick people in the Company.
As for Christine Tailhades, she is involved in the departmental association of friends and parents of maladjusted children. Herself the mother of a child with a disability, she is committed to reducing the difference in treatment that harms the disabled. The RU project, included in that of the establishment, is moreover focused on the reception of this type of person: “the hospital staff is not necessarily trained in the care of these patients, with the consequences that the pathologies of people with disabilities are discovered later” explains Christine Tailhades. “If we are able to accommodate this audience, we can accommodate everyone,” adds Catherine Simonin.
In view of their previous commitments, their new RU role of “full-time volunteer”, as they say with a smile, therefore resonates as obvious.