With the program “Health in France: the state of emergency?” presented by Léa Salamé and Michel Cymes, France 2 is dedicating an exceptional evening to the problems faced by patients and caregivers.
What solutions to fight against medical deserts? To make up for the lack of practitioners, whether in rural areas or in certain towns, recourse to foreign doctors has become widespread. This is shown by this sequence from the program “Santé en France: l’état d’urgence?”, presented by Léa Salamé and Michel Cymes and broadcast on Tuesday March 21 on France 2. Agencies have even specialized in the recruitment of caregivers in Europe.
cheap doctors
In the emergency room of Montreuil hospital (Seine-Saint-Denis), for example, 75% of doctors are of foreign origin, all recruited from outside the European Union. This is the case of Zina Kharfallah, a qualified general practitioner in Algeria who has worked for seven years in Montreuil.
“I don’t just do 35 hours, I do whole days, 24 hours in the emergency room. (…) I do a lot, a lot, a lot of overtime for lack of doctors.”
Zina Kharfallah, general practitionerin “Health in France: the state of emergency?”
But for these foreign practitioners who are not from the European Union, the non-recognition of their diplomas by the French medical system is a real problem. “We work like other doctors and we are always told that our diploma is still not validated”she laments. A problem all the more important as it has an influence on the level of their salaries. Indeed, at the start of their career, a French doctor receives nearly 4,000 euros, while a foreign doctor is paid 2,000 euros on average.
A law to facilitate their arrival
Hocine Saal, the head of emergencies at Montreuil hospital, also studied medicine in Algeria. He deplores the time needed to regularize foreign doctors and tries to fight against this form of injustice. “You have to imagine that on average, a practitioner, from the day he sets foot on French soil to the day he is authorized to practice, it takes between 10 to 15 years, depending on the specialty. , he explains. It’s like going back to medical school.”
“It’s very simple. If I didn’t have them, my service would have to be closed.”
Hocine Saal, head of emergencies at Montreuil hospitalin “Health in France: the state of emergency?”
The need for these doctors, without whom many French people would not be treated, is such that the public authorities have taken up the problem in order to combat the shortage and facilitate the arrival of these practitioners on French soil. Among the proposals that will be debated in the immigration bill in the coming days: the creation of a new residence permit for foreign health professionals.
The show “Health in France: the state of emergency?”, presented by Léa Salamé and Michel Cymes, is broadcast on Tuesday March 21 at 9:10 p.m. on France 2 and on france.tv.