The discontent of liberal doctors, born on social networks, takes shape in the street. Called by the collective “Doctors for tomorrow” to continue, until January 8, the strike movement started the day after Christmas, the liberal doctors have planned to demonstrate Thursday, January 5 in Paris. The stroll will take place from the Pantheon to the Ministry of Health, where members of the collective should be received by Minister François Braun.
After a first movement on December 1 and 2, Doctors for tomorrow asked for the closure of medical practices from December 26 to January 2. “We contacted the minister before Christmas, he replied that he would receive us on January 5, without making any other proposal.deplores Christelle Audigier, founder of the collective. Faced with this policy of the ostrich, we have chosen to renew our movement until January 8th. »
According to the Lyon doctor, about 70% of GPs were on strike last week. A figure quickly denied by health insurance, which estimated a drop of 5% to 10% compared to normal activity at the end of the year. “The vast majority of general practitioners did not follow this strike movement”, supported the director general of the National Health Insurance Fund (Cnam), Thomas Fatôme, Monday on France Info. He also castigated a mobilization “incomprehensible in the period of epidemics that we are experiencing”.
Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne strongly condemned a mobilization “really not responsible” who has “increased tensions on the hospital” as France faces a triple epidemic of bronchiolitis, flu and Covid.
Consultation at 50 €, less administrative tasks
The collective, which claims 16,000 “members” on its Facebook page, remains firm on its positions. He demands an increase in the price of the consultation to 50 €, to create a “attractiveness shock” towards city medicine, which claims to be overwhelmed by administrative tasks to the detriment of medical time and which no longer attracts young people.
Another point of tension, the possibility of transferring certain skills to the paramedical professions, nurses or physiotherapists, to relieve doctors. An option strongly criticized by GPs, who do not want to offload their medical tasks and, on the contrary, want to be able to hire staff to delegate administrative work and free themselves from “medical time”.
A new agreement under negotiation
This strike comes in the midst of negotiations between representatives of the profession with health insurance, with a view to signing a new agreement for the next five years. Some unions, such as the French Union for Free Medicine (UFML), support the collective and its demands. “The hospital is falling and city medicine will follow”, predicts Jérôme Marty, president of the union. “We need to invest several billion a year to save the system”, he pleads. Others, such as the main unions (MG France, CSMF, Avenir Spé), consider that the discussions opened this fall are progressing positively. After having supported the collective for the movement at the beginning of December, they did not call for the cabinets to be closed during the holidays.
The boss of the health insurance ensures for his part that the general practitioners will be upgraded within the framework of the conventional negotiation, which must be completed before the end of February. But an amount of “€50 would be relatively extravagant, it would mean an increase for each general practitioner of the order of €100,000” per year, he said, noting that the main doctors’ unions did not make this claim.