The former chief of staff of the Prime Minister joined the government of Elisabeth Borne on Thursday evening.
The transfer of power took place on Friday July 21, avenue de Ségur. François Braun passed the keys to “his” Ministry of Health to Aurélien Rousseau. For the former director of the regional health agency (ARS) of Ile-de-France, the sites are numerous. “The world of health, for several years now, has been going through crises beyond the Covid”recognized during his speech the ex-right arm of Elisabeth Borne.
> > Reshuffle of the government of Elisabeth Borne: Aurélien Rousseau, new Minister of Health defends himself from accusations of conflicts of interest
“The roadmap is clear”, for his part assured the spokesman of the government (and former Minister of Health), Olivier Véran, on the set of France 2 on Friday. Franceinfo returns to the challenges that the new minister is tackling.
1 Solve the crisis in the hospital, in the emergency room and in the maternities
The vocation crisis affecting the public hospital is at the top of the pile of files. “There is a degradation that we have never seen in the supply of care”, denounced, Sunday, July 16, the emergency doctor Patrick Pelloux, on franceinfo. Dozens of services are forced to regulate the influx of patients arriving at the emergency room. Maternities are closing their technical facilities for lack of staff, particularly in Seine-Saint-Denis, in the Dordogne, at Sedan (Ardennes) and Guingamp (Côtes-d’Armor).
“We can’t go on like this for long”alerted the president of the French Hospital Federation (FHF), Arnaud Robinet, on Friday on franceinfo. “We will need clear, clear and precise measures that we have been asking for several months on the revaluation of guards, on-call duty. We need a real strategic plan in terms of human resources, attractiveness and loyalty”, detailed the mayor (Horizons) of Reims.
The National Union of Nursing Professionals (SNPI) goes in the same direction. He called Friday at Twitter has a “Marshall plan to save the hospital”. It front of “60,000 vacant nursing positions and 10% of caregivers in illness, exhaustion, depression, burn-out, there is an urgent need to act”.
2Improve access to care and fight against medical deserts
“We cannot, in a few months or a year, transform access to care”recognized Olivier Véran on France 2. Ill sees in Aurélien Rousseau “a field actor” Who “will take to heart the reduction of health inequalities, which we have seen during the crisis that they cause damage”.
Emmanuel Macron promised, during his wishes formulated in January, that the 600,000 people suffering from long-term illness (ALD) would find a treating doctor “by the end of the year”. But the road still seems long: François Braun specified on Public Sénat on July 10 that only 53,000 of these patients had “found a doctor”.
The new tenant of the avenue de Ségur will have to solve this problem while renewing the dialogue with the liberal doctors, scalded by the decisions taken by his predecessor. The latter have prompted several strike movements since December 2022, demanding a revaluation of the consultation ranging from 30 to 50 euros. Finally, for lack of consensus, it was a senior official who decided at the end of the discussions, upgrading the consultation by 1.50 euros.
3 Drafting an end-of-life bill
Until now, the bill on the end of life on which the government is working was mainly carried by the Minister Delegate for Health Professions, Agnès Firmin-Le Bodo, who remains in office. In his handover speech, Aurélien Rousseau affirmed “that we will have to confront heavy, ethical questions (…) in particular within the framework of the law relating to the end of life (…) Progress, there is still some to conquer, with the patients, for the patients”.
However, he did not give more details as to the timetable, while the citizens’ convention on the end of life delivered its conclusions on the subject at the beginning of April. The President of the Republic immediately announced his desire to come up with a text “by the end of summer”.
4 Breathing new life into the psychiatric sector
Another emergency: psychiatry, a neglected sector according to caregivers for years, even more damaged since the health crisis. The knife attack which cost the life of a nurse at the CHU of Reims (Marne), on May 24, rekindled the anger of the staff who denounce a lack of means. Four unions called in particular in November on strike to denounce bed closures. “We are mobilizingsince 2003 to alert on this very deep crisis of psychiatry, which has been perpetuated for thirty years”explained to franceinfo Patrick Chemla, member of the national council of the Union Syndicale de la Psychiatrie.
In addition, the shortage of child psychiatrists remains glaring, while more and more adolescents feel the need to consult a specialist. “In town, more than a dozen departments are totally devoid of liberal child psychiatrists”had underlined, in November 2021, the Defender of Rights, Claire Hédon.
5Avoiding further drug shortages this fall
Finally, the new minister will have to work to prevent further drug shortages. This winter, the number of reports of stock-outs reached an all-time high of more than 3,700 in 2022 (it was 700 in 2018), according to a Senate report published on July 6. In question: the triple epidemic of Covid-19, influenza and bronchiolitis this winter, combined with supply difficulties.
It is to answer it that thehe President of the Republic thus announced, on June 13, that the production of 25 molecules will be “relocated or significantly increased on the national territory (…) in the coming weeks” without giving more details.