Minister Frédéric Valletoux has a “contemptuous approach to liberal medicine”, deplores Arnaud Chiche, president of the Santé en danger collective

The Minister for Health declared on Wednesday that he wanted to “motivate” private doctors to take more shifts at nights and weekends.

Frédéric Valletoux “a contemptuous approach to liberal medicine”, denounces Friday February 16 on franceinfo Arnaud Chiche, anesthetist-resuscitator, founder and president of the Santé en danger collective. He says to himself “very uplifted” against the new Minister Delegate in charge of Health. “We cannot approach this subject with such lightness in the analysis and so much certainty in the solutions” proposed, deplores Arnaud Chiche.

The president of the Santé en danger collective believes that Frédéric Valletoux’s desire to “motivate” liberal doctors to take more shifts to relieve hospital emergency services is “absurd”. Because “there are already a lot of private doctors who participate in on-call duty. We must stop thinking that they don’t work at night”insists Arnaud Chiche, while conceding however that “it’s true, they don’t all work nights”.

Regulated guards for security

Then, he reminds us that night work is supervised. “If we work at night, we no longer work the next day. It’s called safety rest. So the consultation the next day will be canceled for 30, 40, 50 patients”, argues Arnaud Chiche. Thus, he finds the minister’s remarks “demagogue, even lying, because we suggest that we will solve the problem of emergencies in hospitals by restoring these guards”. He also adds that it is necessary “know the profile of emergency patients” because “these are not just general medicine problems, even if there are many”.

Arnaud Chiche criticizes the government “to turn away from the real problem”namely the lack of caregivers. “The emergency rooms are overflowing with patients because there are not enough doctors, not enough nurses and there are patients on stretchers who are dying. Frédéric Valletoux should know this because he was at the head of the French Hospital Federation”declares, annoyed, the president of the Santé en danger collective.

The minister “does worse rather than better”

Furthermore, Arnaud Chiche denounces the “quite insulting positioning” by Frédéric Valletoux on the price of consultations with general practitioners. He “pretends to tighten the screw by saying we are going to go from 26.5 to 30 euros, in exchange for compensation”, according to him. The Minister Delegate in charge of Health declared that he was “favorable” to an increase in consultations to 30 euros but “with commitment from doctors”.

For Frédéric Valletoux, “from the moment we relieve them of administrative time, from the moment the State makes the effort to support the functioning of city practices through medical assistants, they perhaps need to commit to taking more patients”. Arnaud Chiche quips ironically: “As if doctors weren’t already working a lot”. He believes that the minister “does worse than better”.