A reform of the AME is a “political decision” and is not a question of public health, denounces emergency doctor Mathias Wargon

During the negotiations for the vote on the immigration law, the Republicans agreed to renounce the abolition of State medical aid in return for a reform of the system at the beginning of 2024. According to Pour Mathias Wargon, head of Smur emergencies of the Delafontaine Hospital in Saint-Denis, “the decision is political” and does not inquire about public health issues: “Someone who coughs can be a cough, Covid-19, it can also be the beginning of tuberculosis and there, it has an impact on the health, not only of the person, but of those around them and of people who live around it, it can be a public health problem.”

The reform of the AME will lead to an influx of people into emergencies according to him: “You should know that the AME is not aimed at individuals, but it is a way of paying private doctors and hospitals for the care they provide.”

“As private doctors will no longer be paid, people will go to hospitals, that will only deepen the hole in hospitals and that changes nothing for people.”

Mathias Wargon, head of the Smur emergency department at Delafontaine Hospital in Saint-Denis

at franceinfo

The end of unconditional emergency accommodation also worries Mathias Wargon. According to the emergency doctor, new people who “will present themselves to the emergency room, in already overloaded emergency rooms” while “emergencies are already a receptacle for society’s difficulties”.

Regarding the resignation of Aurélien Rousseau and the interim replacement of Agnès Firmin-Le Bodo, the head of emergency Smur at Delafontaine Hospital in Saint-Denis deplores the instability. “We see the medical deserts and the problem of attractiveness of hospitalsdeplores the emergency doctor. At some point, we’re going to have to have doctors, people who stay in place and who can reform the health system.”