The anger of the doctors still goes up a notch.
After the strike of December 1 and 2, then the closing of the offices the week between Christmas and New Year's Day, the doctors will be on strike again this Tuesday.
Some of them will go to Paris to demonstrate in front of the Senate and testify to their opposition to the Rist bill which, after having been voted on at first reading in the Assembly, arrives in the hemicycle in the Senate.
This text, carried by Renaissance MP Stéphanie Rist – also rapporteur for the pension reform text – aims to allow direct patient access to certain paramedics without going through the attending physician.
General practitioners see in this the disappearance of their role of coordinator of the course of care, and the risk of the development of a two-speed medicine.
Read alsoStrike: anger rises among general practitioners
Another reason for the anger: yet another bill, brought by the PS deputy Guillaume Garrot, aimed at limiting the freedom of installation of doctors and forcing them to settle in “medical deserts”.
A similar proposal was to be presented to the Assembly on Wednesday by the deputy Horizons Frédéric Valletoux, former president of the Hospital Federation of France… before being suddenly withdrawn on Monday, on the eve of the strike.
“
The dialogue is blocked
”, noted Frédéric Valletoux, who however plans to file a reworked text within a month.
And this, despite the opposition of the government, which considers coercive measures not only ineffective but counterproductive, because they encourage young people not to settle.
"
I am opposed to coercion in the installation of doctors.
Not out of dogma, but because it doesn't work
, ”repeats the Minister of Health, François Braun.
Stalled talks with Medicare
Finally, and above all, the doctors go to the front, because their discussions with Medicare are at a standstill, to establish the next medical convention which will establish the prices of the profession for the next five years.
After several weeks of negotiations, Thomas Fatôme, director of Medicare, proposed to increase their fees by… 1.50 euro.
The doctors immediately cried out in
"contempt"
and
"humiliation"
, while the price of the consultation, set at 25 euros, one of the lowest in Europe (45 euros on average), did not been revised since 2016, and that the proposed increase does not cover inflation.
"
This strike shows the desperation of doctors, who are in great pain.
Patients are angry because they cannot find a doctor;
we take more and more, but the situation is unbearable.
We are asking for the means to be able to hire medical assistants to see more patients
, ”explains Dr Luc Duquesnel, general practitioner in Mayenne.
Its union, the CSMF, pleads to pass the simple act to 30 euros and that the complex consultations which take time with polypathological patients are valued 60 euros.
Read also“It took me three and a half years to find a general practitioner”: the fed up of the French in the face of medical deserts
Exasperated, doctors have set up a collective on social networks, called "doctors for tomorrow", which calls for a doubling of the price to 50 euros.
A union, the UFML, will organize in March the foundations of the déconvention: the doctors would be free to practice the tariff which they want, their patients, them, would not be refunded any more.
A die-hard choice that many practitioners refuse.
But the little music rises, a sign of the deep fed up of the profession.
While the negotiation began in November, and must be signed on February 28, nothing has been achieved.
The pressure is mounting on Medicare: while physiotherapists and midwives have refused to sign their agreement, a new failure with doctors, the flagship of the conventional system, risks setting fire to the powder.
