The Federation of Private Hospitalization (FHP) announced Tuesday, December 30 in a press release that it was renouncing the indefinite strike that was scheduled in clinics from January 5, 2015. It indicates that it has obtained “progress in the discussions carried out. with the Ministry of Health on the hospital component of Health bill “. The president of the FHP, Lamine Gharbi, even declared in this press release that the intense discussions held with the ministry for a month and a half have proved to be “constructive”, and that they thus made it possible to address their “most serious concerns. “
The Federation of private hospitalization, which brings together around 1,000 private hospitals and clinics, was opposed, among other things, to the redefinition of the concept of public hospital service (SPH) contained in the health bill carried by Marisol Touraine. The fear of private clinics was to be excluded from the SPH because of the excess fees (or free fees) billed by the liberal doctors who practice in these establishments.
In its first version, the text of the Health Bill stipulates that all the doctors working in the SPH must remain in sector 1, and practice agreed rates without any excess fees. If this financial accessibility was dear to the Minister Marisol Touraine, it has all the same let go of the ballast, by agreeing to negotiate “exemptions”. From Monday, January 5, a consultation group between the ministry, the Order of Physicians and the liberal doctors’ unions will meet to rewrite the contested article of the bill. The revised and corrected text will go to Parliament next spring.
A decision that is not unanimous
If the bosses of the private clinics give up the strike, this decision does not satisfy the liberal doctors’ unions, who accuse the FHP of having negotiated with the minister without their approval. “The FHP has only obtained declarations of intent, while we have no confidence in the Touraine cabinet” protests Philippe Cuq, spokesperson for BLOC, a trade union grouping together surgeons, anesthesiologists and obstetrician-gynecologists . He calls on them to boycott the operating rooms next Monday. The CSMF, the leading union of medical specialists, “calls on all practitioners of heavy technical platforms to join the movement of all liberal doctors as quickly as possible. “
Doctors ready to refuse the vital card in protest
While the general practitioners’ strike was to end on Wednesday, December 31, the unions are already preparing new actions, and fully intend to increase the pressure on the government. The MG union calls, for example, for the closure of liberal cabinets, to remind that the tariff of the consultation has been stuck at 23 euros for four years. The Federation of Doctors of France (FMF) calls for a strike on teletransmissions of treatment sheets, in other words to boycott the vital card. Instead, the traditional brown and white treatment sheet will be addressed to the patient and sent to Health Insurance by mail. As a result, patients will take an average of one month to be reimbursed, compared to five days with the vital card. The other unions do not yet know whether they will join this initiative, and at the same time propose to boycott the hotlines at weekends or to stop the declarations of doctors treating people.
Interviewed on the radio, Marisol Touraine called on doctors to take responsibility for this threat of a strike on the vital card, recalling that “the vital card is a central element in the relationship between the doctor and his patient. “
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