we hope “that it won’t make a huge splash like the big debate”, warns doctor Jérôme Marty

“We have completely forgotten liberal medicine”, alert this Sunday, October 2 on franceinfo, Jérôme Marty, general practitioner and president of the UFML (the French Union for Free Medicine) while this Monday begins the major consultations on health within the National Council for Refoundation and for which the Minister of Health, François Braun, has set the objectives. For the doctor, “it will take money” to fix the problems. According to him, “it is the whole of liberal medicine that must be relaunched” also thinking of specialists and not just generalists. Jérôme Marty hopes that these consultations “will not do like the great debate”. Emmanuel Macron had launched the great national debate to deal with the movement of yellow vests.

franceinfo: After the Ségur de la santé in 2020, what do you expect from this consultation?

Jérôme Marty, general practitioner and president of the UFML: We expect a lot. We have completely forgotten liberal medicine, term after term for 30 years. There was indeed a Ségur for the hospital – which was insufficient – but there was no Ségur at all for liberal medicine when we can clearly see that this type of medicine is the only one capable of meshing the territory, the only one capable of providing care to patients. It is therefore this that must be developed and we must not be afraid to say things: we will need money, a lot of money. We are used to talking about medical deserts and immediately we think of general practitioners, but medical deserts are also the deserts of specialists. Which Frenchman is not subject to a difficulty of access to care to see a specialist? Which Frenchman does not have his appointment in six months or more depending on the specialties? It is therefore the whole of liberal medicine that must be relaunched.

It is therefore the result of these consultations that will count, the proposals are important but what will be left of them?

We are going on a long-distance race with 1,200 debates on France. Let’s hope it won’t be like the great debate, that is to say a vast splash in water from which nothing came out. I wouldn’t want us to amuse the gallery because we don’t have time now. These decisions must be taken with the population of course, but also with the intermediary bodies that are the elected trade unions of the profession because when we skip the intermediary bodies, we end up with the yellow vests.

Do you think the debate is as open as that?

It is our fear. We fear that the stakes are already made. We don’t want to bet on this medicine. They pull us out of hats that look like nothing, like health centers with salaried doctors who are window dressing and false options because if we compare the cost of the act, we see that it is more expensive than in liberal medicine. France was lucky to have a strong hospital alongside strong liberal medicine and today the hospital is sick and liberal medicine is moribund. The questions asked are the right ones, the problem is to know if solutions will come out of them.