In rare unanimity, the unions have called for doctors’ surgeries to be closed across the country and to march in the capital.
“All united in the face of contempt.” Several thousand doctors demonstrated in Paris on Tuesday, February 14, to express their anger against Health Insurance and the government, to demand better rates and to block a reform which facilitates patient access to certain paramedical specialties.
In rare unanimity, the unions have called for doctors’ surgeries to be closed across the country and to march in the capital. The mobilization was also reinforced by the deadlock in negotiations with Health Insurance, whose proposal for an increase of barely 1.50 euros in the basic consultation (from 25 to 26.50 euros) was experienced. as “a provocation”. The unions expect no less than 30 euros, an amount that the Minister of Health, François Braun, judged “not absurd”.
A procession of more than 10,000 people set off according to the organizers, preceded by a dozen SOS Médecins vehicles also on strike for the occasion. Leaving the Ministry of Health in the early afternoon, the demonstrators joined the Pantheon, not far from the Senate, where a bill on “direct access” patients to certain paramedics (nurses, physiotherapists, speech therapists) had to be examined at the end of the day.
The government defends itself
For the unions, this text risks “to endanger health” Population “bypassing the coordination function of the attending physician”. Arguments defeated by the government. “The objective is in no way to set aside the general practitioner”, said the Minister Delegate for Health Professions, Agnès Firmin Le Bodo, who came to defend the text before the senators. On the contrary, this reform aims to “give more care time” to doctors, continued on franceinfo the Minister of Health, François Braun, saying “understand the concern of doctors, not their hostility”.
The bill is also supported by nurses, including 50 unions and associations denounced Tuesday “systematic opposition by doctors to any development of (other) health professions”. The Association of Mayors of France also said “favorable” to the text, as well as the federation of patient associations, France Assos Santé.