The explosion in the number of work stoppages prescribed in France (+30% in 10 years) worries Bercy who considers that it is “a subject of concern”. Toulouse doctor Jérôme Marty, president of the French Union for Free Medicine (UFML), denounces a new form of relentlessness by the public authorities.
Sick leave in the sights of Bercy: the Minister of Public Accounts Gabriel Attal, questioned by the Senate on the Social Security accounts for 2022, announced on Thursday June 15 the sharp increase in the number of prescriptions. “The dynamic is very high. It’s exploding,” said the minister, who expressed his “concern”.
According to Health Insurance, 8.8 million sick leaves were prescribed in France in 2022, compared to 6.4 million ten years ago, an increase of 30%.
How to explain this finding? What do doctors think and what are the ways to reduce this phenomenon, while the Ministry of the Economy intends to reduce health spending? The answers of Toulouse doctor Jérôme Marty, president of the French Union for Free Medicine (UFML).
Dr. Jérôme Marty, general practitioner in Fronton.
8.8 million sick leaves prescribed in 2022 compared to 6.4 million in 2012… How do you view these figures and how did you react to the announcements from the Ministry of the Economy?
Pinning down doctors in this way is one more contempt on the part of the authorities, who have decidedly failed to understand that the relationship to work today is no longer that of fifteen years ago. Add to that the Covid-19, its long forms which affect a tenth of those affected, and you have an explosive cocktail to explain this explosion of prescriptions. Bruno Le Maire wants to play the apprentice doctor but does not have all the elements of the health aspect of this country: “breaking the thermometer” as Bercy intends to do amounts to anything but solving the problem. With this system, we will end up with patients not arrested on the pretext that the Health Insurance wants to reduce prescriptions, which poses serious health questions. This logic makes us run towards the drama.
More generally, what interest does a doctor have in abusing work stoppages? Already that the profession is sticking its tongue out and must, for the most part, refuse new patients, how can the public authorities pass us off as clientelists when we are only there to treat? This excessive guilt makes no sense.
Health Insurance, which monitors between 15,000 and 20,000 doctors to check their prescription habits, announced that a thousand of them were going to be “put under objectives” (MSO), via procedures in which the doctor s undertakes to reduce its prescriptions for shutdowns within a period of 6 months, under penalty of financial penalties. What do you think ?
When it comes to MSO, unions have unanimously told doctors to refuse it. We just can’t accept that. It’s not medical: if I’m put on target, I can no longer exercise healthily. Some doctors could “self-police” and thus end up not prescribing care to a patient who needs it. It’s not acceptable.
Between the controversy around medical deserts, consultation prices, sick leave, do you feel that you are in the sights of the public authorities?
I don’t think the politicians are angry with us, but on the other hand I’m sure they don’t know anything about liberal medicine. To the point of finally forgetting it. This is a terrible observation because it must be remembered that only 1% of patients in France are treated in hospital. And none of them enter without going through a city doctor. We are therefore essential and we regret to be regularly singled out in this way.
What can be done to reduce the number of prescribed work stoppages?
We must improve society: happiness is the best therapy. Stress, as a reminder, is an immune depressant. Stressed people develop illnesses, plain and simple. We must therefore manage, both in business and in everyday life, to have happier French people. This is the only way to reduce the number of work stoppages.