New rules for emergency departments may leave inpatients without assistance, doctors warn

A new government order allows hospitals to reassign doctors from internal wards to external emergency departments during periods of high pressure or long wait times. This applies to doctors who have already exceeded their annual limit for overtime work, and the federation of doctors (FNAM) warns it lacks objective criteria for when these reassignments should happen and does not set minimum staffing levels for patients already admitted to hospital wards.