When he arrived at the Ministry of Health in early July, François Braun spoke of a "breathless health system".

Six months later, the supply of care seems to be in even worse shape.

A winter "triple epidemic" has befallen an already bloodless system due to a structural lack of caregivers, despite the billions of euros poured since 2020 as part of the Ségur de la santé to strengthen the attractiveness of the sector.

If the situation has improved on the front of bronchiolitis and Covid-19, it has become tense for the flu, the Minister of Health evoking Wednesday "an explosion of cases" resulting in a saturation of intensive care services.

The "failures" of the system have disastrous consequences, underlined the Samu-Urgences union of France, which has identified 30 "unexpected deaths" of people awaiting hospital care since December 1 in France.

Even if it mobilizes less than the movement at the beginning of December, the new strike launched among general practitioners between Christmas and New Year's Day has further increased the pressure on the hospital and the liberal emergency physicians of SOS Médecins.

More than 50% of surgeries are closed, says the group Doctors for Tomorrow, when Health Insurance estimates the decline in activity of general practitioners at 5 to 10%.

Their central demand remains the increase in the price of the consultation to 50 euros to create a "shock of attractiveness" towards a city medicine crushed by administrative tasks and which no longer attracts young people.

While acknowledging "the difficulties and sometimes the exhaustion of certain liberal doctors", François Braun "firmly" condemned this movement, while the negotiation of the convention binding these practitioners to Health Insurance is not over.

The former emergency doctor judged "not acceptable that access to French health care is thus undermined" in "a week of all dangers".

His successor at the head of Samu-Urgences de France, Marc Noizet, felt that this strike was coming "at the worst of times".

But not all hospital doctors criticized the action.

"put everything back together"

The inter-union coalition Action Praticiens Hôpital asked "that the movement of liberal doctors be taken into due consideration: it is only the tip of the iceberg that is the decay of our health system".

The improvement of working conditions is at the center of expectations.

"There is a financial response", but it is not sufficient, said emergency doctor Mathias Wargon on Friday.

We need "a fundamental response which is to ensure a quality of life at work, an interest in work", he commented on franceinfo, noting that "nurses - more than doctors - have the impression to plug the holes".

The congested emergency room of the Hautepierre hospital in Strasbourg (eastern France) on December 29, 2022 © SEBASTIEN BOZON / AFP

A group of more than 5,000 doctors, caregivers and hospital workers recently demanded a defined schedule and a maximum patient-to-nurse ratio.

This would require hiring "about 100,000 nurses" over three years.

The Hospitals of Paris alone want to recruit 2,700 nurses in 2023, and as many in 2024. It must be said that in four years, the nursing workforce of the AP-HP, from around 17,000 in 2018, has shrunk by 10 %, with the result that the proportion of closed beds has worsened, to 16%.

François Braun reaffirmed this week that he would announce in January the "main lines" of restructuring the supply of care, in hospitals and in town, on the basis of the work of the National Council for Refoundation (CNR).

"It's the whole health system that needs to be overhauled, and it's becoming urgent," warns Action Praticiens Hôpital.

© 2022 AFP