Medical interns on the streets so as not to be sent to medical deserts

Europe 1 with AFP 5:53 p.m., October 14, 2022

Called to strike by their unions, several hundred medical interns demonstrated Friday afternoon in front of the Ministry of Health, to protest against the extension of their studies by one year, "in priority" in the medical deserts .

"Doctors are like jam, the less you have the more you spread it": between ironic placards and dynamic fanfare, several hundred medical students - 800 according to the Intersyndicale Nationale des Internes (Isni) - are gathered at the beginning of the afternoon in front of the ministry, before setting off in procession towards the Senate.

Other demonstrations brought together 2,000 people in Lyon and 400 in Strasbourg, according to local media.

In Paris, a delegation of union leaders was to be received by the office of Minister François Braun.

With the firm intention of "telling them that we must withdraw all the coercive measures" included in the Social Security budget for 2023, according to the president of Isni, Olivia Fraigneau.

“demagogic” measures 

In his sights, the ban on temporary work in hospitals at the start of a career, but above all the addition of a fourth year of internship for general practitioners, which would be carried out "in priority in areas where the medical demography is under-dense,” according to the bill passed through committee in the Assembly this week.

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“Demagogic” measures because “the whole of French territory is a medical desert”, affirms Yaël Thomas, president of the National Association of Medical Students (Anemf), which represents future interns supposed to wipe the plaster of the reform – the promotion 2023 to start this new "year of consolidation" in the fall of 2026.

“Obviously you need doctors in under-dense areas,” admits Eli, 23.

But for this external in the 4th year, the account is not there: "We do 9 to 10 years of study, it's very long, an internal is paid 1,300 euros net for 70 hours per week and we don't have not even have our say on where we want to practice?".

“We would like to practice our profession as we wish” 

“We use young doctors as a workforce, with increasingly mediocre salaries,” laments Nicolas, 26, who has just started his internship in gastroenterology.

"The goal is to wring us out, to empty us, when we haven't really started our active life".

Pleading the "misunderstanding", François Braun again repeated the same morning that "there has never been any condition of obligation" for this additional year to be carried out in the medical deserts and that the objective was to guarantee to the future generalists "adapted training".

The Minister, on the move to a Parisian hospital, responded to a young practitioner wearing a "interns on strike" bib, who had challenged him as soon as he arrived: "We would like to practice our profession as we wish (and) be recognized by our fair value (with) a decent wage".

"We refuse to be mere pawns" 

A message taken up in a less diplomatic form during the demonstration by Raphaël Presneau, president of the Intersyndicale of general medicine interns (Isnar-IMG): "We refuse to be simple pawns that we would move on the territory, at the right want policies".

In their balance of power, young people can count on the support of their elders.

On the hospital side, the CGT, the CFE-CGC, but also the practitioners of APH, the emergency doctors of the Amuf and the anesthetists of the SNPHARE had provided their support to the interns.

Ditto with the Liberals, most of whose unions (CSMF, Avenir Spé, SML) approved this strike against an "irresponsible" reform.

More measured, the first union of generalists, MG France, shares "the concern of the students", while claiming "a fourth year meeting their legitimate expectations".

A line also defended in a press release by the Order of Physicians, "attached" to "making effective (this) consolidation phase" in all specialties "including general medicine".

But which cannot "in any case be considered as a rapid response to the difficulties of access to care", warns the institution.