The crisis at the hospital continues. The Bordeaux University Hospital announced on Tuesday May 17 that emergencies will pass “in degraded mode” from Wednesday and will now be closed to the public at night. Only patients brought in by 15 will be taken care of. In this context, the president of the French Hospital Federation, Fréderic Valletoux calls for “a duty of care for liberal doctors and a revaluation of nights in the hospital”. A proposal opposed, on franceinfo Tuesday, Luc Duquesnel, general practitioner in Mayenne and president of the Confederation of French medical unions. “A general practitioner works an average of 53 hours a week, we can’t ask them for more”he explains. “You have to work on each territory, he continues, see how we do together to put ourselves in degraded mode and be able to respond to French care requests”. President of the Confederation of French Medical Unions fears that “summer will not be very difficult for some French people who will need care in certain territories”.
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franceinfo: What do you think of this request from Frédéric Valletoux?
Luc Duquesnel: I’m quite surprised, a lot of general practitioners are already taking part in on-call duty. General medical care works well in several departments: it is weekend care, public holidays, but also in the evening and in rural departments, it is all night. The problem of closing emergency services is not new. I am in a department, Mayenne, where for a year the emergency services have closed one night out of three, and moreover the activity of these services is carried over to liberal general medicine. What Mr. Valletoux must understand is that in the territories where there is a lack of doctors in the emergency services, there is also a lack of them in general practice. It is a global lack. The difference: a general practitioner, when he is on call, does not recover the working time. When, for example, I am on night duty as a regulating doctor, I work 8 p.m. to 8 a.m. At 9:15 am I’m in my office, I don’t have two days off to recover from my shift. The working time of a general practitioner is around 53 hours a week at the moment. We cannot ask them to do more.
Isn’t the message: it is absolutely necessary to organize urgently. Because the situation is serious by dint of small bandages?
Absolutely and this is already what we are doing in our territories. For example in Mayenne since July 7, 2021, and this is the problem of the emergency services, we have doubled the regulation guards on 8 p.m.-10 p.m. and it is done by the liberal doctors. This problem of shortage has been predictable for years and is getting worse. We have to work on each territory: see how we do together to put ourselves in degraded mode and be able to respond to the care requests of the French. This is important because we can see that now it also affects university hospitals.
Are you worried about this summer?
Very worried, because the summer of 2021 has already been very difficult. There are also a lot of general practitioners who want to stop because it is getting too hard: on-call duty, daily work, fewer doctors, new patients to take care of to compensate for retirements. It becomes very hard for everyone. We have a health system that is out of breath, in outpatient and hospital settings, sometimes in certain territories it is a bit of a shipwreck. We have been crying out for years, nothing is happening and I fear that the summer will be very difficult for some French people who will need care in certain territories.