This will notably serve to “support” health establishments in difficulty.
The government announced this Friday that it had released “exceptional aid” of 500 million euros.
This money also aims to “return” the 470 million credits entered in the social security budget for 2023 and “unused”.
“The President of the Republic and the Prime Minister have repeatedly recalled the priority they wish to give to our health system” and today want to “support establishments in the difficulties they encounter”, wrote in a press release the Ministry of Labor, Health and Solidarity.
With @CaVautrin, we are announcing €500M in exceptional aid to support the activity of public and private health establishments.
€470M of credits not used in 2023 will also be returned to hospitals.
This effort reflects our commitment to access to #care.
pic.twitter.com/sMXL4WppMs
— Frédéric Valletoux (@fredvalletoux) February 16, 2024
The executive therefore decided, on the one hand, "to grant exceptional aid of 500 million euros to public and private establishments for the year 2023" and, on the other hand, to "return" to public and private non-profit establishments “470 million euros of unused credits” provided for in the social security budget voted for 2023.
Not “inflation aid”
This is not “inflation aid” but rather “aid to support establishments whose activity has progressed in 2023 but whose financial situation is weakened,” the ministry told AFP. health delegate.
The aid will be distributed by the regional health agencies (ARS).
Health establishments have continued to warn in recent months about the deterioration of their accounts.
They demanded, all sectors combined (public, private, private non-profit, cancer centers, home hospitalization), 1.5 billion euros from the government to compensate for inflation in 2023.
The federation of private hospitals affirmed at the end of January that “40% of establishments (were) in deficit” in 2023, compared to 24% in 2021. The 32 university hospital centers (CHU, public) warned of their cumulative deficit which reached the end of 2023 some 1.2 billion euros, or three times more than in 2022. The support announced this Friday “is in addition to the 388 million credits set aside and paid to hospitals at the end of 2023”, specifies the Ministry.
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But for the French hospital federation (FHF, public hospitals), these decisions are “very far from the needs”.
The “restitution” of credits allocated but not consumed is only “partial”, she judges: the establishments “expected to recover 720 million euros” in this respect and therefore believe they are “drained”.
Reaction of the FHF to the announcements of the @governmentFR about #inflation and the partial restitution of the under-execution of the ONDAM for public hospitals➡️arbitrations very far from the minimum needs, which enact a new plan of major savings on #publichospital.… pic.twitter.com/mWOzrgudgV
— FHF (@laFHF) February 16, 2024
Furthermore, the public sector would need one billion alone to compensate for inflation and the aid of 500 million, “half as much”, will be “shared” with private establishments.
“The government is therefore endorsing an unprecedented increase in the deficit of public hospitals which will be around 2 to 3 billion in 2023,” deplores the FHF.
Same story for private hospitals: this support “remains below the needs and can only be seen as a first step”, judges the president of the Federation of Private Hospitals Lamine Gharbi who nevertheless welcomes “the will of the new minister » health delegate Frédéric Valletoux “to act quickly”.