Medical students sent to the front in the medical deserts? Several hundred medical interns demonstrated on Friday 14 October in front of the Ministry of Health in Paris, as part of a strike day organized by their unions. They protest against the one-year extension of their studies, a measure defended by the government, in particular to fill the lack of doctors in some territories.
Elsewhere in France, 2,000 people mobilized in Lyon and 400 in Strasbourg, according to local media. The National Intersyndicale of Interns (ISNI) and that of General Practitioners (Isnar-IMG) ask for the revocation of the provision establishing a fourth year of internship for future general practitioners, which would be carried out “priority in areas where medical demographics are sparse”according to the draft social security budget for 2023.
Only “on a voluntary basis”
In an interview with Publication published Friday, the Minister of Health, François Braun, believes this conflict is “gone wild for a misunderstanding” and ensures that originally this fourth year of studies was “A request from the students”. After the demonstration, a delegation of union leaders was to be received by the minister’s office.
The additional year of study envisaged by the reform must be dedicated “outpatient courses” with the purpose of “Prepare better” future doctors to exercise in a doctor’s office, he argues. And if these internships will have to be carried out “Preferably in less dense areas”the minister promises “Stay on a voluntary basis”.
Discussed this week in the National Assembly, the contested article was validated by the deputies of the Social Affairs Commission, with some formal amendments, in particular on the supervision of students by the internship supervisors operating in the same. “basin of life”. “Interns will have undergraduate internship supervisors. It’s not about letting them go alone in nature “Mr. Braun promises again.
A reform “carried out without consultations”
Not enough to satisfy ISNI, which for two weeks has been denouncing a reform destined to do so “exploit junior doctors to respond at a lower cost” problems with access to care e “Carried out without consultation with the main stakeholders”.
The interns have since received the support of most of their elders. On the hospital side, the CGT, CFE-CGC (executives), but also practitioners of APH, AMUF emergency doctors and SNPHARE anesthetists announced their participation in the demonstration in front of the ministry.
Among the liberals, the CSMF, the first organization of the profession, approved the strike of the interns, judging “Irresponsible” send them alone to medical deserts. “Total support” also by the Union of Liberal Doctors (SML), which believes that the measure is equivalent to doing “to carry on the shoulders of young people the weight of twenty-five years of errors of successive governments”. The main GP union, MG France, also shares “student concerns”while claiming “a fourth year that meets their legitimate expectations”.
