The Minister of Health, François Braun, reacted on Sunday to the question of the reintegration of caregivers who were suspended because they had not been vaccinated against Covid-19. A few days after a heated debate in the Social Affairs Committee of the National Assembly, where a deputy from La France insoumise (LFI) tabled a bill to reinstate them, the first head of the health sector affirmed that his decision will be taken. over the next few months.
Guest of the Grand Jury RTL-Le Figaro-LCI program on Sunday, François Braun explained that his decision will be based on the opinions of the High Authority for Health and the National Council of Ethics. He pointed out in particular that his decision is faced with two problems, “one of health security” and the other related to “Professional Ethics”.
A “health” and “ethical” issue
During his intervention, the Minister of Health first justified the maintenance of the suspension of these caregivers by the health reason, namely the “protection of the most fragile”. “Do we accept that people who are not sufficiently protected are close to the most fragile people?he wondered, arguing that in France, “We are still dying from the Covid, every day”.
For François Braun, the reintegration of these nursing doctors also poses a “professional ethics problem”including among caregivers who have agreed to be vaccinated. “This problem came back to me from caregivers who got vaccinated,” he said. They tell me: we got vaccinated, we did the job, we held the line and there, you tell us that those who were not there to help us will come back.
The member of the government does not rule out revising his decision on this question. He underlined having seized the High Authority for Health as well as the National Council of Ethics. It will thus communicate its decision after their opinions, expected at the beginning of 2023.
“Their return will not solve the problems of the hospital”
But François Braun relativized a possible return of the suspended caregivers, considering that “the problems of the hospital will not be solved” however.
In particular, he justifies his decision with figures: when asked about the number of people affected by this measure, more than a year ago, he mentioned “very few doctors” and of “1,050 nurses out of 300,000”, referring to the Council of the Order of Nurses.
When this suspension came into effect, more than a year ago, the Ministry of Health announced that 15,000 caregivers and other professionals concerned were unvaccinated and therefore suspended. A number that “dropped”, according to the former Minister of Health, Olivier Véran, current government spokesman.
Last Wednesday, deputies La France insoumise (LFI) tabled a bill to reinstate suspended personnel in return for“a reinforced health protocol” pending the mandatory step of a favorable opinion from the High Authority for Health on the lifting of the vaccination obligation in medical and hospital settings, under the law of July 30, 2022 putting an end to exceptional regimes created to fight the Covid-19 epidemic.
In the process, Senators LR Sylviane Noël and Laurence Muller-Bronn, sent Wednesday, November 16 to the Minister of Health, a vitriolic letter, co-signed by other senators to castigate “guilty stubbornness” of the government while the hospital is at “agony”recalling that the anti-Covid vaccine had no effect on either transmission or contamination.