Emergencies: the health system held up well this summer, according to the government

It sounds like a sigh of relief. Despite the shortage of caregivers in hospitals, the Minister of Health and Prevention sketched this Tuesday a first reassuring assessment of the care of people with an unexpected health problem. On the eve of the opening of a broad consultation on the health system, he also defended the usefulness of medical regulation to prevent the influx of patients into emergency services.

“For the moment, things are going less badly than we might have feared, [voire] quite well in quite a few areas,” said François Braun during a trip to the Hérault. Welcoming the mobilization of hospitals, elected officials and liberal doctors, he insisted on the fact that “vital emergencies” had been taken care of this summer, despite the lack of doctors, nurses, caregivers etc.

Compounded by summer holidays and staff exhaustion after two years of the pandemic, the lack of medical personnel prompted the executive to launch in the spring a “flash mission” on emergencies led by François Braun, then an emergency doctor. Pressed by the seventh wave of covid the executive quickly adopted a range of temporary measures to help the hospital get through the summer: financial incentives for caregivers, regulatory relaxations, communication campaign…

“To be careful “

Arrived in July at the head of the Ministry of Health, at the end of his mission and replacing Brigitte Bourguignon, François Braun is careful not to draw a definitive assessment of the tools deployed before the end of September which should see the expiry of certain exceptional measures. “Summer is not over, he says, we have to be careful”.

It must be said that the medical actors continue to grit their teeth. “At this stage, it was one of the most difficult summers we have known in terms of operation,” said Vincent Roques, at the French Hospital Federation (FHF), representing public establishments. “The situation remains very heterogeneous depending on the territory”, he notes, while hospitals can very severely limit access to their emergency services.

No inappropriate deadlines

The Minister nevertheless worked to defend medical regulation, which should make it possible to best guide patients before they pass the door of the emergency room. “Medical regulation leads to better patient care”, he declared to “Midi Libre”, challenging the idea that this regulation has led to an unmanageable overload of calls on number 15 and delays. wait unacceptable.

“We must perpetuate the filtering and continue the increase in overtime for staff”, declares the boss of the Federation of private hospitalization, Lamine Gharbi. The principle of filtering patients is however opposed by certain representatives of caregivers, pointing above all to the lack of means and beds “downstream” of emergencies.

The general opinion is that the tense situation in the emergency room is only one facet of a deep evil affecting the French health system. Health actors are therefore impatiently awaiting the opening of more global discussions which should begin in the wake of the “National Refoundation Council” launched on September 8. François Braun promises “extremely precise and operational measurements at the end of the year”.