IPA: Until recently, this acronym referring to the profession of “advanced practice” nurse did not speak to anyone. Thanks to a bill aimed at broadening their missions, which arrives in the Senate on Tuesday February 14 with the support of the government, these professionals find themselves at the heart of a battle which, they confide in half a word, exceeds them. A little. “So much the better if people talk about us, we are little knownnotes Julie Devictor, president of the National Professional Council of IPAs. But with regard to the heart of our activity and our workforce [1 700 en exercice], you can’t be a miracle cure in medical deserts either. »
The battle has already found a political echo, during the vote on the bill at first reading in the Assembly, on January 19. It is bouncing back today among liberal doctors, all of whose unions called for a strike on Tuesday: by introducing a ” direct access “without going through the doctor’s box, to IPAs but also to physiotherapists and speech therapists, as part of a “coordinated exercise”, the text carried by the Renaissance deputy Stéphanie Rist, supporter of the ” delegation ” of skills between caregivers, shakes up the dividing lines of a certain number of medical gestures.
A blow to the proper care of patients as much as to the primary role of the attending physician, argue the critics of the text. An emergency response to declining medical demography justifies its supporters. “This text meets two objectives: to fight against medical deserts and improve access to care”, pleaded in the Hemicycle Stéphanie Rist, rheumatologist by profession. It’s not “not an end in itself but the first step in the overhaul of our health system”defended the Minister of Health, François Braun.
“Different look”
What are interested parties saying? “On a daily basis, I feel in my practice a thousand miles from controversy”, testifies Laurent Salsac, IPA in Joué-lès-Tours (Indre-et-Loire) and deputy secretary of the National Union of Advanced Practice Nurses. ” Very far “ to imagine that his profession could come “compete” more than 100,000 independent doctors: “It would be David versus Goliath…”
In the office he shares with five general practitioners, he claims to benefit from their “full support”. “The six of us follow more than 8,000 patients, many elderly people, many patients with long-term illnesses. Our exercise is complementary”, supports the nurse, who obtained his state diploma (bac + 3) in 2006, then that of IPA (bac + 5) in 2020. “First, I check the patient’s medical file. Then I listen to him. Finally, I take stock of his illness, daily life, home careexplains Laurent Salsac. That’s as much “medical time” saved when a doctor takes over. »
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