Between the closure of emergencies, caregivers at the end of their rope or on strike and a triple epidemic, the French health system is “out of breath”, admits the government.

Friday, during a visit to a hospital in Essonne, in the Paris region, for a long-awaited vows ceremony, Emmanuel Macron must seize the problem by evoking a vast refoundation site.

“The President of the Republic will go to the South Francilien Hospital Center (CHSF)”, in Essonne, “to present his wishes to the actors of health, hospitals and liberals”, announced Wednesday the Elysée.

This hospital was the victim of a large computer attack in August.

The Head of State "will return to the actions undertaken, the challenges to be met as well as the work to be carried out to rebuild our health system", specified the presidency.

Towards a strike from January 10

Accompanied by the Minister of Health François Braun, he will go in particular to meet the teams of the pediatric department, "in a context of strong tensions on pediatric emergencies", she added.

According to an adviser to the executive, President Macron, who is organizing for the first time in six years at the Elysée a greeting ceremony dedicated to health professionals, will make announcements on this occasion.

His decisions are eagerly awaited by a sector which is experiencing a period of extreme tension, with overwhelmed emergencies and a crying lack of caregivers in hospitals and in town, against the backdrop of the triple winter epidemic of Covid-19, flu and bronchiolitis.

Sign of these tensions, the liberal doctors were called by a collective to continue this week a strike which began the day after Christmas, to obtain a revaluation of the consultation, with a national demonstration planned for Thursday in Paris.

FO-Santé, the second hospital public service union, in turn called for an indefinite strike from January 10 to protest against the government's "inaction".

“Part of the way has been done”, assures the entourage of Emmanuel Macron

The government has promised a "refoundation" of the health system, after the billions of euros poured since 2020 within the framework of the Ségur de la santé to strengthen the attractiveness of the sector.

The entourage of the Head of State believes that Emmanuel Macron revealed his "philosophy" in 2018, when he launched his reform to strengthen the supply of care in the long term, in particular by removing the numerus clausus in studies of Medicine.

"Part of the way has been done", but these measures take years to bear fruit, the time to train new generations of caregivers, the same source argues.



During the campaign for his re-election, Emmanuel Macron had recognized in the spring that it would be necessary "to go much further, faster and stronger", in particular by strengthening "the prevention policy", "the simplification of the hospital and its governance" and improving "access to emergency care".

He made it one of the two “major projects” of his second five-year term, along with the school.

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  • Health

  • Emmanuel Macron

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  • Bronchiolitis

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