Parents will soon no longer need a medical certificate to register their child for a sporting activity. His fitness for sport can now be assessed throughout the year by his attending physician.
This is good news for all parents. They will soon no longer need to provide a medical certificate to register their offspring for a sporting activity. Instead, a child’s aptitude for sport can be assessed throughout the year by their attending physician, the Ministry of Health announced as part of the draft Social Security budget for 2020. This “simplification measure” concerns “more than 6 million minors licensed in clubs and / or sports federations”, explains the government.
“The twenty compulsory consultations planned since 2019 in the health and prevention course for infants and children up to the age of 18 will now allow regular examination by the doctor of the children’s aptitude for sports practice” , develop the Ministries of Health and Public Accounts. “For this age group, the obligation to produce a medical certificate for obtaining a sports license will therefore be abolished, and replaced by a declaration completed by the legal representative, making it possible to ensure that young people have seen a doctor.”
For Dr Nicolas Barizien, sports doctor at the Foch hospital (Hauts-de-Seine), these twenty consultations must be used “above all for preventive medicine. And that is a particular time that the patient and the doctor must respect”, he explains to franceinfo.
Free up medical time and relieve health insurance
To complete the sworn statement, parents can use a questionnaire to help them determine whether or not their child needs to see the doctor before starting sport at school.
“This regulatory change is excellent news, because it will remove a brake on the practice of sport within the framework of a club. It will also simplify the lives of families and associations. This measure was eagerly awaited by the sports movement and parliamentarians and I campaigned for it to see the light of day. It also reminds us that sports practice is an important lever in terms of public health and that we must use all means to encourage it”, enthuses the sports minister Roxana Maracineanu in a statement.
“What really matters to us is that as many children as possible play sports. It is absolutely fundamental for their psychomotor development for social development, to adopt good eating habits and especially to fight against sedentary diseases, such as obesity, in adolescents”, specifies Dr Nicolas Barizien with Franceinfo.
The measure will also make it possible to “free up medical time” in liberal practices and to relieve the health insurance accounts to a minimum, hopes the government, which is expecting 30 million euros in savings.
A specific medical examination will however remain compulsory for sports involving risks such as rugby, diving, mountaineering, parachuting or boxing.
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