While Claire Compagnon’s report proposes to breathe new life into health democracy, certain institutions such as the HAS or the University Hospital of Angers are already showing the example.
Nine recommendations for moving to Year II of health democracy, this is contained in the report submitted last Friday by Claire Compagnon to the Minister of Health Marisol Touraine. However, according to Claire Compagnon, already known to have been at the initiative of the General Assembly of cancer patients, this new breath for the rights of patients will necessarily go through a real status.
User representatives cannot remain volunteers like everyone else. And so that the role they now play in the health system since the law of March 4, 2002 does not remain a simple advisory guarantee, they must in particular be able to benefit from compensation, training and legal protection. they are whistleblowers.
The Haute Autorité de Santé almost leads by example
In terms of compensation precisely, the High Authority for Health (HAS) already considers that a user sitting in one of its bodies is an expert in the same way as a doctor or an economist. He therefore receives reimbursement for his travel expenses and compensation for a half-day or a day’s presence at the HAS to compensate for the loss of income.
However, where the shoe pinches in this great institution, it is that there is for the moment not a representative of the users in each of its commissions. Indeed, they do not sit in particular on the 2 evaluation committees, nor on the Transparency Committee for medicines. Their constitution is defined by decree and Jean-Luc Harousseau, president of the HAS, is hopeful that users will soon enter these 2 key commissions and not only to have a folding seat.
Listen to Prof. Jean-Luc Harousseau, president of the HAS : ” In the coming weeks or months, I hope that this problem will be solved, but this will involve training users. “
But Claire Compagnon’s report also recommends leaving a place for users in health establishments and essentially in decision-making places. The typical example is the CRUQPC, the commission for relations with users and the quality of care. They exist everywhere, but they are in places “real empty shells, formal structures resulting from a legal obligation”, specifies the report. Above all, there is a lack of effective coordination between the CRUQPC and the quality policy of the establishments, so that the representation of users ultimately weighs on arbitration.
The University Hospital of Angers collects the opinions of citizens
Cited as an example by Claire Compagnon for her citizen forum, the University Hospital of Angers had the idea of going beyond the presence of users imposed by law. Since 2013, 24 of them have been designated to participate in a citizen forum. They are between 25 and 76 years old and are employees, workers, retirees or representatives of associations of hospital users. All responded to the call from the CHU to provide a critical and constructive look at the school project. These volunteers, for example, issued 14 recommendations ranging from improving parking around the CHU, to developing outpatient surgery, and limiting private consultations at the hospital.
Listen to Yann Bubien, Director General of Angers University Hospital: ” I wanted the forum to have a civic look, because directors or doctors, there are sometimes things that we no longer see, even if we are working in the interests of patients ”.
Marisol Touraine will announce in April, in the national health strategy, the recommendations adopted to inject this new impetus into health democracy.
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