The new Minister of Health, François Braun, will “having to tackle a major project”, says the president of the APHP establishment medical commission Rémi Salomon on franceinfo on Tuesday July 5. It will have to deal in particular with the emergency crisis which “is in fact a crisis of the health system”estimates the one who is also president of the conference of the presidents of the medical commissions of establishment of CHU.
franceinfo: The task is not easy for the Minister of Health, the observation, in any case, is chilling: “Our whole health system is out of breath”, he says. Do you share this opinion?
Remi Solomon: Yes, we have reached a point where we wonder how we will be able to get out of this. François Braun has made proposals [41 propositions pour consolider les services d’urgences dès cet été], he will be able to implement them. There are a lot of interesting things. We have the impression that we are in a hurry, and that we are trying to close the gaps for the coming summer. But I believe that François Braun knows that the current emergency crisis is in fact a crisis of the health system. And now that he is a minister, it is a big project that opens up to him, he will have to tackle a big project. We are talking about overhauling the health system. The problem is that we waited a long time. It has been known for years that things are deteriorating from the hospital point of view, and in city medicine, there is the problem of medical demography.
There are a lot of things that we haven’t seen coming enough and there are a lot of shortages of doctors in a lot of places in the hospital. What was already present three years ago, but which has worsened with the covid crisis, is the lack of staff. We no longer have any attractiveness because neither the wages nor the working conditions are sufficient. And François Braun will only be able to do this if the means for the hospital are increased very significantly. And it is not only François Braun who will decide this, but it is also Emmanuel Macron and Bruno Lemaire at Bercy, as well as at the National Assembly. In a few weeks now, we will be preparing the Social Security financing plan, so a lot of things will also be at stake at this level.
Does the absence of an absolute majority in the National Assembly worry you?
No, like all French people, I wonder a little how the government is going to be able to take the measures, but for the hospital, what is essential for everyone, whatever the political side, is that the French are attached to the health system. Who can imagine that in France, we could no longer, in some places, have access to care? That the surgery that must take place must be postponed a third time, as is happening at the moment, often with a loss of opportunity? No, that is not possible. So we have reached a point where we say to ourselves but how to continue to treat the French everywhere in France in a correct way? Now, you have to think not in terms of the means, but by telling yourself to treat well, what are the means that I need?
The hospital is currently facing a new wave of covid, more than a thousand hospitalizations per day and it is still climbing, is it manageable?
It’s both manageable because there are still quite a few serious cases that go to the hospital. A little over 1,000. That’s quite low compared to the first wave when we were at 7,000, and 3,000 or 4,000 during the following waves. It’s significantly less, but given the state of saturation, the lack of personnel that I quickly described to you just before, it’s complicated. And what is also complicated is that the nursing staff is also affected. So as in all sectors of the economy, we have rising absenteeism. And that, for the hospital, is worrying.
Would it therefore be necessary to take additional measures, for example the compulsory mask?
I only give recommendations. I think that in public transport, in all closed places where there are several of us, it is good to put on the mask. It still reduces the transmission of the virus. Compulsory or not, it’s not for me to say, I leave it to the politicians to see how, but I think that recommendations are necessary and the mask is a protection.
It took a long time to understand that this virus was also transmitted by air. It is therefore necessary to ventilate the premises and arrange the premises so that they can be properly ventilated. This, we have finally done very little until now. After two and a half years of pandemic, it’s time to get started. But I think that we will not return to measures as restrictive as the vaccination pass. We will live maybe another year, two years, or even more with the pandemic. So we can’t be totally constrained either. So we need precautions like the mask, but I think we won’t go much further.