2022 ends in extreme tension for the health system

A “Triple Epidemic” winter has fallen on an already bloodless system due to a structural shortage of carers, despite the billions of euros paid since 2020 as part of the Ségur de la santé to strengthen the attractiveness of the sector. If the situation has improved on the bronchiolitis and Covid-19 front, it has become tense due to the flu, the Minister of Health reported on Wednesday “an explosion of cases” leading to saturation of intensive care units.

30 deaths of people waiting for treatment

Everywhere calls at 3 pm, visits to emergency services and the use of stretchers in the corridors are abnormally high. The “failures” of the system have disastrous consequences, underlined the French trade union Samu-Emergencies, which identified 30 “unexpected deaths” people waiting for hospital treatment since 1 December in France.

Although less mobilized than the movement in early December, the new strike launched among general practitioners between Christmas and New Year’s has further increased the pressure on the hospital and liberal emergency doctors of SOS Médecins (see box). At the head of Samu-Urgences de France, Marc Noizet, estimated that this strike would come “at the worst times”. But not all hospital doctors have criticized the action.

Improved working conditions

This was requested by the inter-union coalition Action Praticiens Hôpital “Let the liberal medical movement be given due consideration: it is only the tip of the iceberg that is the decline of our health care system”.

The improvement of working conditions is at the heart of expectations. “There is a financial answer”, but that’s not enough, emergency physician Mathias Wargon estimated on Friday. Need “ a fundamental response which is to guarantee a quality of life at work, an interest in work”, commented franceinfo, noting that “nurses – more than doctors – have the feeling of plugging the holes”.

“It’s the whole healthcare system that needs to be overhauled and it’s becoming urgent.”

A group of more than 5,000 doctors, healthcare professionals and hospital workers recently requested a defined schedule and a maximum patient-nurse ratio. Which would require hiring about 100,000 nurses” over three years.

The Paris hospitals alone want to hire 2,700 nurses in 2023, and the same number in 2024. It must be said that in four years the nursing staff of the AP-HP, from around 17,000 in 2018, has decreased by 10%, with the result being that the share of closed beds worsened to 16%.

François Braun reiterated this week that he will announce in January the « big axes » restructuring of the healthcare offer, both in hospitals and in the city, on the basis of the works of the National Council for the Refoundation (CNR). “It’s the entire healthcare system that needs to be overhauled, and it’s becoming urgent”warns Action Practitioners Hospital.

A strike continued

Less mobilizing than the early December strike, the one launched among general practitioners between Christmas and New Year’s causes the closure of more than 50% of the practices, says the Doctors for Tomorrow collective, when the Health Insurance estimates the decline in the activity of doctors generics from 5 to 10%. Their central request remains the increase of the consultancy price to 50 euros to create a “attraction shock” towards a city medicine burdened with administrative tasks and which no longer attracts young people.
While acknowledging “the difficulties and sometimes the weariness of certain liberal doctors”Francois Braun a “firmly” condemned this movement, while the negotiation of the convention linking these professionals to health insurance is not finished. The former ER doctor judged “it is not acceptable that the access of the French to health care is compromised in this way” in “a week of all perils”.