“The health system especially needs reform,” argues emergency doctor Mathias Wargon

The head of emergency at Delafontaine hospital in Saint-Denis in the Paris region reacted to the Prime Minister’s promise on Saturday to invest “an additional 32 billion euros” for the health system “within five years”.

“The health system especially needs reform”, supports Sunday January 14 on franceinfo Mathias Wargon, head of emergency at Delafontaine hospital in Saint-Denis in Seine-Saint-Denis, the day after Gabriel Attal’s announcements on health. During a trip to Dijon on Saturday, the new Prime Minister announced an investment of “32 billion additional euros” for the French health system “within five years”, which corresponds, according to his entourage, to an “increase in the budget for the health sector, adopted in the latest Social Security financing law”. Mathias Wargon regrets the absence of “long-term vision”, visible by the regular change of ministers in recent years and the absence of “minister dedicated to health” in the new government. The head of emergency at Delafontaine hospital in Saint-Denis considers that faced with the difficulties weighing on health, “we need to overhaul the entire system”.

Mathias Wargon ensures that we “can’t continue like this”. “The entire health system has relied more and more on the hospital, and on emergencies in particular, we have been saying for years that it is breaking down”, reminds the emergency doctor. He particularly deplores “difficult and degraded working conditions” at the hospital due to the influx of patients. In his emergency room in Saint-Denis, he sees every day “200 to 300 passes”against “150 to 170 before 2020”. Mathias Wargon explains that many sick people come “in the emergency room because they can’t find a solution in town” However, emergency nursing staff cannot “not welcome everyone”.

Call for “substantial reflection”

In this context, not only “a lot of money is needed”but “we first need to know where to put it and what we are going to do with it”, insists Mathias Wargon. The emergency physician wants a “background reflection” be made, with “a map”. “Explain to me how we are going to reform the health system in five or ten years, what we want to do, how we want to renovate it”, he pleads. Mathias Wargon wonders, for example, whether to fight against medical deserts, we should not allow “nurses, physiotherapists, pharmacists to do more”. “The question is: who do we give money to and for what: should we focus on serious illnesses? Should we do bobology? Should we Are the doctors there to issue certificates? Can you cancel your appointments at the last minute?”asks the emergency doctor.