Following the elections to professional unions, the landscape of medical unions is very fragmented. The presidents of the FMF and the CSMF are now calling for unity.
As expected, the majority medical unions, MG France for general practitioners (more than 31% of the votes) and the Confederation of French medical unions (CSMF) for specialists (more than 40% of the votes), affirm their leadership position in the elections. regional unions of health professionals (URPS) which ended on Friday. With these results, the CSMF remains the leading union of liberal doctors.
Abstention and protest
These elections are held this year against a backdrop of tension, following the rejection of the doctors of the generalized third party payment contained in the health bill, currently being discussed in the National Assembly.
Sign of this unease, the abstention which progresses, with a participation rate this year of 39.92%, whereas it was 46% in 2006, of 52.7% in 2000. In addition, the push of the unions claims were striking. Among general practitioners, the FMF has indeed recorded an increase of more than 9% with 27% of the votes, while Le Bloc achieves in the college of surgeons, anesthesiologists and gynecologists-obstetricians an increase of 8.55%.
A common program
The next conventional negotiations with the Health Insurance, in February 2016, relating in particular to the rates of consultations, will open in an equally tense climate. However, union fragmentation could reduce the room for maneuver of liberal doctors. To avoid this scenario, the unions want to agree to arrive united against the government and the Health Insurance.
“The union fragmentation is likely to weaken liberal medicine because the doctors go in dispersed order in battle and for the government, which gets along well on that side, this allows it to better ‘examine’ the liberal doctors. I think that doctors have realized the danger of this law, and that unity will be rebuilt, ”underlines Dr. Jean-Paul Hamon, president of the FMF, a more protesting union.
Jean-Paul Hamon, president of the FMF: “The union fragmentation is likely to weaken liberal medicine because the doctors go in dispersed order in battle …”
According to him, the generalized opposition of doctors to the health law can therefore lead to a rapprochement. The FMF should soon meet “all the partners, whether the SML or MG France, to establish a common program”.
Like him, Dr Jean-Paul Ortiz, president of the CSMF, speaks of the need to agree on “common bases” in terms of rates and coordination between doctors, to achieve the signing of the agreement.
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