Judging “blocked dialogue” with the National Health Insurance Fund, the biology laboratories will cease on January 2 to feed the national file which allows the government to follow the evolution of the Covid-19 epidemic, announce their unions in a press release sent on Saturday December 31 at Agence France-Presse (AFP).
“Patients will be able to continue to be tested in the laboratories, but the government will not receive any data feedback”they point out. “If this is not enough, we are considering a new national strike over several days and the total cessation of Covid acts for an indefinite period. We would like not to come to that for access to care for our patients, [c’est] now it is up to the government to assume its responsibilities and not to take the population hostage”they say, speaking of a “Black January to avoid black years”.
Biologists, whose profits have increased sharply with Covid tests, dispute the amount of savings that are asked of them in return, in the coming years. A strike had already taken place in November for the same reason. If a compromise seems in sight for a budgetary drain of around 250 million euros in 2023 (divided between Covid tests and other examinations), as the government wishes, the negotiation is blocked with regard to the period 2024-2026 .
Social Security offers an envelope of 150 million over three years to reimburse “innovative acts” currently reserved for hospitals, without however specifying the amount of savings expected for other procedures, referred to “the signing of a multi-year protocol before the end of the first half”. However, biologists have already set their red line in terms of price reductions: no more than 145 million euros per year. To go beyond “would lead to the closure of at least 400 local laboratories [et] to the elimination of at least 10,000 skilled jobs”they say.