As France is going through a triple epidemic and emergency services are overwhelmed, some liberal doctors have decided to go on strike this week, angering Health Minister François Braun. “It is the young people who have decided to strike, it is the rank and file that is mobilizing,” says Dr. Claude Bronner, a Strasbourg resident.
Launched by the Doctors for Tomorrow collective, the initiative, which began on Monday and is expected to continue until January 2, will involve some 10,000 health professionals, according to Soline Guillaumin, a general practitioner on strike in Metz.
“We are doing this to save liberal medicine,” says the health professional.
Double the price of the consultation
But what exactly do these flashy doctors demand? How can such a move be justified, when the French are waiting for an hour in front of the SOS Médecins premises, as BFM Lille journalists pointed out on Monday?
Among the first demands, the increase in the price of the consultation from 25 to 50 euros is the most raised measure. “That does not mean doubling our salary!” warns Soline Guillaumin.
“This would allow us to hire a medical assistant, a secretary, to be able to get together in a group… If we want to work with several people, we need a large, personal space… We have to pay these people. It’s not to enrich ourselves,” says the striking doctor.
The same request from Jean-Paul Hamon, generalist on strike in Clamart (Hauts-de-Seine). “On December 1, I was in front of the ministry. I noticed that there were 70% women, including three of my ex-externs. One told me: ‘you know, Jean-Paul, if we go out for 25 euros, I’m going to have to fire my cleaning lady. They don’t even have enough to pay for a secretary!” the doctor fumes.
Put pressure on treaty negotiations
This request occurs in the midst of conventional negotiations between general practitioners and the National Health Insurance Fund, delayed two years due to the Covid-19 epidemic. But for Jean-Paul Hamon, the executive “decided to let the situation fester.”
“The government is acting as if it has time. He is negotiating until March, with decisions that will be applied in six months, while the country is depopulating, doctors are no longer installed, because they do not have the conditions to do so. correctly”, he continues. The strike is therefore a means of pressure in this context.
“It is useless to come to close the cabinets to put pressure on. Is the government angry? The poor kitten. And we are not angry”, replies Jean-Paul Hamon.
But how to finance this doubling of the consultation rate, when the financial situation of social security is mostly in deficit, aggravated by the Covid-19 pandemic. Soline Guillaumin evokes the track of the mutuals, “called to put their hands in the basket”.
A “shock of attraction”
The various general practitioners interviewed, whether on strike or supporting the movement, underline the desire to create a “shock of attractiveness”. The profession of general practitioner no longer attracts young medical students, while their role is central in society.
Therefore, it is necessary to reform the health system in depth to recover the taste for this profession, considered “exciting” by those who practice it. But that would have lost its meaning in later years.
Bruno Mégarbane, head of the intensive care unit at the Lariboisière hospital in Paris, makes a bitter observation: “Liberal medicine suffers from the same ailments as in the hospital, with increasing paperwork, increasing fixed costs… Let’s do these tasks “. to the detriment of the time we dedicate to patients (…) If private doctors have to do extensive administrative tasks, we are facing a crisis in the health system”.
“We have put billions in the hospital without reforming the health system. However, when you do not have a strong medicine in the city, which allows you to avoid hospitalizations or shorten them, this is what we come to”, believes Jean-Paul Hamon .
save the city medicine
Faced with the timing of the strike, which comes at a tense situation for the French hospital system, some, however, have reservations about the current move.
“City medicine is suffering as much as hospital medicine. This is not the right time to go on strike. We chose this profession because we have deep values and, at this moment, we need everyone. National solidarity is needed”, judge Agnès Ricard- Hibon, spokesman for the French medical society.
But for Soline Guillaumin, if doctors want to save their profession, we must act now.
“As a doctor it is very difficult to go on strike. It’s been 20 years since we did something like this. But it is essential to protect our patients through this movement”, she judges.
Source: BFM TV
