The abolition of State Medical Aid on Tuesday, November 7, 2023, arouses controversy and reactions, from elected officials and doctors alike. Jérôme Marty, president of the French Union for Free Medicine, even threatens a movement in the medical sector.
“I am making this video because, like many doctors, I am deeply shocked of the Senate’s vote last night to suppress the AME of the right and the Far Right”reacted this Wednesday, November 8, Doctor Jérôme Marty, president of the French Union for Free Medicine, on X (formerly twitter).
In the Upper House, right-wing elected officials had requested, as part of the immigration law study, a tightening ofhe system allowing foreigners in an irregular situation to benefit from access to care (AME) by upgrading it to Emergency Medical Assistance (AMU). This would only concern “management of prophylaxis and treatment of serious illnesses and acute pain, pregnancy-related care, regulatory vaccinations and preventive medicine examinations “.
In his video, the doctor based in Fronton in Haute-Garonne addresses directly the Senators who requested and voted for its removal: “politicians cannot know that its removal will be of no use. What do they imagine, that once they are there, they will not be treated?” And to argue: “If we don’t treat these people, then their pathologies will evolve. Pathologies like tuberculosis, do the people who voted for this imagine being in contact, in the metro, with tuberculosis patients?”
Messages to political leaders who voted in the Senate on November 8, the removal of#SOUL and to those who will vote for or against its suppression in the National Assembly pic.twitter.com/Bj8syKOuA9
— DrMartyUFML-S (@Drmartyufml) November 8, 2023
For Jérôme Marty, the vote to abolish the AME is “an electoral market”. ” “We confuse the AME in its entirety and humanitarian aid which represents a very small envelope of the AME. Those who come to be treated for cancer because they cannot be treated in their country, and who try to take advantage of this to stay in France, it’s peanuts! We cannot make people who are in great precariousness pay for the behavior of a few.” Doctor Marty knows that this decision has little chance of being ratified by the National Assembly. “But he warns: “if that were the case, you would live an anger from the public and private medical sector like you have never experienced, Never.”
On the political side, the president of the Occitanie Region, Carole Delgaalso reacted on X, evoking “a health misinterpretation” And “an insult to the values of our country“. For the elected official, the AME must be maintained.
RN deputy Frédéric Cabrolier, for his part, retweeted a reaction from his group, which welcomed the vote by evoking a position defended by Marine Le Pen for years.
The text must be debated in the National Assembly.