Engaged for more than a month in a showdown with the government, which wants to impose lower prices on them via the social security budget, the biologists called Monday evening for a “renewable strike” from November 14. Because the last chance meeting has come to an end. Received at the end of the day at the headquarters of the Health Insurance, the representatives of the liberal biologists “ran into a wall”, affirm their four unions.
Come to negotiate a puncture limited to 250 million euros, as provided for in the Social Security budget, but “in the year 2023 alone”, they explain that they have on the contrary received “a new proposal for a plane even saltier than that initially envisaged” : 280 million next year, then 322 million per year until 2026.
Denouncing “the austerity madness” of Health Insurance, they call for “the renewable strike of all medical biology laboratories from Monday November 14” and hope to be followed by the large private networks, members like them of the Medical Biology Alliance (Biogroup, Cerba, Eurofins, Inovie, Synlab).
“No turning back” possible for the government spokesperson
“This policy of blind planing will cause the closure of local laboratories, particularly in rural areas and medical deserts”, they add, warning Ministers François Braun (Health) and Gabriel Attal (Public Accounts) against “the risk of a general mobilization of health liberals”.
According to a biologist contacted after the meeting, this strike should affect “all the city laboratories on November 14, 15 and 16, at least”. He specifies that “hospital samples, dialysis, urgent home samples (in particular chemotherapy) and medically assisted procreation assessments will be the only acts treated on those days. »
However, the executive seems reluctant to change its mind. The government spokesman, Olivier Véran, declared on Sunday that there would be “no turning back” on the savings included in the Social Security budget and that there was “no need to revise this position.