More than 600 French hospital doctors have threatened to resign if the government does not increase health funding, as striking medics prepare to take to the streets this week across the country, reports The Guardian.
The doctors warn that budget cuts, bed closures and staff shortages are bringing France’s health system to the brink of collapse and putting patients’ lives at risk.
“Public hospitals in France are dying,” wrote 660 medics from hospitals all over France in an unprecedented open letter, saying funding cuts were threatening patient safety in what was once seen as one of the best healthcare systems in the world.
Doctors are calling for urgent government talks after nine months of hospital strikes, which began in March in emergency rooms and have since spread across departments from paediatrics to psychiatry, with junior doctors joining this month and no end in sight.
On Tuesday, medics will march across France carrying banners saying: “Public hospitals: a life-threatening emergency”. The long-running healthcare strikes are proving a major headache to the centrist president, Emmanuel Macron, with rail workers now adding to his troubles by carrying out nationwide stoppages against pension changes.
Macron’s pledge last month of more hospital funding and staff bonuses was rejected by doctors’ groups as not enough.
In 2000, the World Health Organization ranked France’s health system the best of 191 countries. But a study by the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation, published in The Lancet medical journal in 2017, placed it in 15th place for quality of care.
“For years we’ve watched from afar with a lot of empathy as UK healthcare staff struggle under NHS funding cuts,” said Cathy Le Gac, a Sud union representative, who worked for 19 years as a trauma nurse, dealing with serious car crash accidents north of Paris. “And yet, now in France, funding cuts mean we’re seeing similar problems to our NHS colleagues.”
For many years, governments on the right and left have reduced funding. Public hospitals in France have been forced to cut €9bn in spending since 2005, leading to the scrapping of hundreds of beds and dozens of operating theatres while stagnant salaries fuelled a flight to the private sector. Emergency room staff complain of elderly patients being left for hours on trolleys in corridors, not enough equipment, increased waiting times for operations and even deaths.