Overwhelmed emergencies, a lamentable lack of carers in hospitals and in the city: 2022 ends in extreme tension for the health system, on the path to “failure” according to the operators who await the “re-foundation” promised by the government. Upon his arrival at the Ministry of Health in early July, François Braun spoke of a “breathless health system”. Six months later, the care supply appears to be in even worse shape.
A winter “triple epidemic” has hit an already bloodless system due to a structural shortage of carers, despite the billions of euros paid since 2020 under the Ségur de la santé to boost 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 evoked an “explosion of cases” on Wednesday with the consequent saturation of intensive care services.
Everywhere calls at 3 pm, visits to emergency services and the use of stretchers in the corridors are abnormally high. At the local level, as in Savoy and Ain, “white plans” have been launched, which allow the deprogramming of non-urgent operations to free up beds. The “failures” of the system have disastrous consequences, underlined the French union Samu-Urgences, which has identified 30 “unexpected deaths” of people waiting for hospital treatment since December 1 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. More than 50% of outpatient clinics are closed, says the Doctors for Tomorrow group, when health insurance estimates the decline in the activity of general practitioners between 5 and 10%.
Their central request remains the increase in the price of consultancy to 50 euros to create an “attractiveness shock” against a city medicine crushed by administrative tasks and which no longer attracts young people. While recognizing “the difficulties and sometimes the exhaustion of some liberal doctors”, François Braun “firmly” condemned this movement, while the negotiation of the convention linking these professionals to health insurance has not finished. The former emergency room doctor judged it “unacceptable that access to French health care is so undermined” in “a week of all dangers”. His successor at the helm of Samu-Urgences de France, Marc Noizet, believed that this strike would come “at the worst times”. But not all hospital doctors have criticized the action.
