Posted Dec 12 2022 at 19:02Updated 12 Dec. 2022 at 19:51
Beware of upheavals in the management of strategic stocks of masks and other valuable protective equipment in the event of a health crisis, warns the Court of Auditors in a report published on Monday. The financial magistrates do not recommend calling into question the management of these stocks by the French public health agency despite the recommendations made in this direction last year by an independent mission.
At the start of the Covid-19 epidemic, in 2020, France was in dire need of masks and strategic stocks had not made it possible to compensate for this shortage. In 2021, an independent mission on crisis management wanted to learn from this bad experience and recommended entrusting the constitution and management of these stocks to a single operator, placed under the responsibility of the General Secretariat for Defense and of National Security (SGDSN), attached to the Prime Minister.
Scientific concerns
Previously managed by the Health Emergency Preparedness and Response Establishment, strategic stocks were entrusted in 2016 to the new French Public Health Agency. However, for the independent mission, this integration has harmed “the proper consideration of the logistical issues” related to the masks. In particular because Public Health France has “a more scientific culture and concerns”. Placed under the supervision of the Ministry of Health, the agency is in fact responsible for monitoring health risks and carrying out prevention in the field of health.
For the time being, the recommendation of the independent mission on the Covid crisis has remained a dead letter. And for good reason, it arouses strong reservations. In its report, the Court notes that the Ministry of the Armed Forces “is unfavorable” to the idea of entrusting this mission to its armed forces health service, as the 2021 mission could suggest. In addition, the magistrates note that inventory management is not the responsibility of the Ministry of Defense in large countries such as the United States, Great Britain or Canada.
“Not negligible” administrative component
One solution, mentioned by the Court of Auditors, would be to entrust the management of strategic stocks directly to the State. However, such a transfer would contribute “to a certain instability in the distribution of tasks between the Ministry of Health and the agency”, writes the Court. Moreover, “it would also probably involve a significant administrative component, linked in particular to the transfer of agents, as well as the ownership of products or storage places”.
“The agency is not responsible for the level of stocks since it acts as an operator of the State – and it is indeed the State which is responsible in the matter”, also wanted to underline, Véronique Hamayon, president of the sixth chamber of the Court of Auditors, during a hearing before the senators.