François Braun in front of his former emergency colleagues to respond to the crisis in the sector

François Braun will be on familiar ground this Wednesday, but not necessarily conquered. The Minister of Health will indeed go before his former colleagues in emergency medicine, who are waiting for “clear commitments” before a high-risk summer for this sector still in crisis.

The Minister will speak at the beginning of the afternoon before the Emergencies 2023 congress, an annual event organized by the French Society of Emergency Medicine with the union of emergency physicians Samu-Urgences de France, of which François Braun was the president before his entered the government almost a year ago.

Chronic overcrowding in the emergency room

“We expect François Braun to speak the truth, to make clear commitments so that we can finally see a light at the end of the tunnel”, indicates Marc Noizet, who took over from him at the head of Samu-Urgences. of France. “Practicing the profession has never been so complicated. Our young colleagues tell us from the first month, they do not want to stay in these conditions” at the public hospital.

Emergency departments in France are faced with chronic congestion, which often places doctors in very difficult situations. Faced with the crisis, the President of the Republic also committed in April to “unclog all emergency services” by the end of 2024.

Samu-Urgences de France supports one of the government’s flagship measures to deal with the crisis, the generalization of the regulation of access to emergencies by 15, which should in particular make it possible to better filter the passages. But the union expects progress in the construction of the salary increase of the medical profession in the hospital, still in progress. “If we don’t make things attractive enough for weekend and night work, doctors will leave public hospitals,” says Marc Noizet.

The union also wants the regional health agencies (ARS) to have more restrictive means to force the private sector to participate in weekend and night shifts, so as not to let public hospitals assume this burden alone. In 2021, there were 20.4 million emergency visits in France, compared to just over 10 million in 1996.

source site