The SOS Médecins association announced on Sunday, December 28, 2014 that it was joining the movement to protest against white coats, including general practitioners and liberal doctors.
Like the latter, the SOS Médecins association is opposed to the generalization of the third party payment exemption set out in the government’s Health Bill, proposed by the Minister Marisol Touraine. This measure will allow patients to be exempted from the advance of costs, which they must currently pay before being reimbursed by Health Insurance.
But for SOS doctors as for liberal doctors practicing outside the association, this device is “materially hyper complicated”, strengthens public services and “already enormous powers” granted to directors of regional health agencies (ARS).
Currently, in Nord-Pas-De-Calais and Lorraine, “the directors of ARS have decided that there is no longer any need for a liberal doctor between midnight and 8 am, and that people have to go to the emergency room »Deplores the president of SOS Médecins, Doctor Dominique Ringard. “So for a kid who has an ear infection at 2 am, you will have to go and wait 4 to 5 hours in the emergency room. This local policy will help to further clog emergencies for anything, and all this at exorbitant costs. “
“Let us work 24 hours a day, as we have been doing for 48 years now,” pleads Dr Ringard, “including the deep night: there are children to see, old people who need us at their bedside … “
SOS doctors requisitioned to deal with overwhelmed emergencies
From Monday 29 in the morning until Wednesday 31 December, the doctors of the association will therefore mainly be in strike. They will join the movement of liberal doctors, whose participation rate is around 80%, according to the main union in the profession, the CSMF.
However, all the structures of the SOS doctors association are requisitioned, to face the risks of shortages of doctors and the influx of patients in the emergency room. The thousand doctors of the association have thus seen their working period extended, beyond the night period. The 64 structures spread over the territory will take turns: some will be requisitioned at night and during the day, others at night only. “We are requisitioned with a vengeance. Emergencies are, despite what Minister Marisol Touraine says, hyper overwhelmed, explains the president of SOS Doctors. We are overwhelmed with calls, for example in Amiens, the day after Christmas, we had 570 calls, and saw 400 patients. “
If the strike seems well followed, not sure that it does not lead to an agreement, given the lack of dialogue between the unions and the Ministry of Health. The strike movement of general practitioners and liberal doctors should therefore continue until December 31, or even beyond January 1, 2015, according to reports. press releases of the Federation of Doctors of France and the CSMF. The latter even stands on its positions, announcing that it will not accept “minimum proposals that would not be up to the stakes.” “
Read also :
Doctors strike: it will last longer than expected
Health law: the Minister of Health will not go back on the Third Party Payant
The emergency room workers are raising the strike, the doctors are starting their slingshot
Marisol Touraine announces an agreement to counter the emergency workers’ strike
