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French medicine may not be so healthy after all

Only yesterday I had good things to say about “Continental” medical provision, and it was France in particular that I had in mind.

Here on the other hand, is another view:

The French health service, regarded as the world’s best, is falling apart, a petition signed by 286 of its most senior hospital doctors claims. Waiting lists, almost unknown in France five years ago, are becoming common, and there is a severe shortage of doctors and nurses.

However, you need to be aware that this is being said by people who want this to be believed, so that they can be given more money to give to themselves, and each other. When did you last hear of people saying, when their annual grant was being discussed: “Oh, things are fine, really – in fact, we could probably get by with rather less money, if the truth be told” ? Not lately, I should guess.

“In casualty units, sick people have to wait for hours, sometimes even days, on stretchers, because there are no beds for them in the hospital,” said the doctors’ petition, sent to the newspaper Le Monde.

Nevertheless, that does sound rather anglais.

The recently appointed Health Minister, Philippe Douste-Blazy, has said the public health service budget would be €12bn (£8bn) in the red this year, €1bn more than the previous forecast.

The two events are closely connected. The doctors’ petition was a shot across the bows of the unpopular centre-right French government, which is expected to announce plans next month for the most radical reform of the health service in more than 50 years.

Battle-lines are being drawn for what is likely to be the most bitterly contested domestic political issue in France this year, the future of a €130bn-a-year health service which is regularly named by the World Health Organisation as the world’s finest.

A committee of inquiry reported in January that the “health insurance” section of the nation’s social security system faces a €66bn deficit by 2020 unless something is done to increase its revenues or reduce its spending, or both. Half of public spending on health goes on the state hospital service, which was originally to be excluded from the reforms.

The argument is all about money in other words. Suddenly the French system looks good, yes, but rather expensive. The health equivalent of Concorde. And they want, if not to cancel it, then to clip its wings rather severely.

11 comments to French medicine may not be so healthy after all

  • The French Health System also failed rather badly last August during the heat wave, IIRC.

  • I think I am more inclined to believe them now that they have allowed thousands of people to die in hospitals from a heat wave that would be considered a mild summer here in Texas.

  • Damn you Den Beste! Go back to your rocket ships and Frog bashing and quit stealing my thunder! Leave the… um… Frog bashing to me.

    Thunder stealer!

  • Three years ago I had a long conversation with an Enarque about France’s health system. It became clear to me that the French government was becoming more and more involved and that things were becoming ever more like this country.

    I am just surprised how little time it took.

  • You missed the best line from the article:

    The [doctors’] petition offered no alternative solution, other than more spending, to the crisis.

  • Gustave La Joie

    The problem is largely confined to two problems, both of them recent and of government manufacture:

    1) there have been problems in the state-owned hospitals. These are no better run than NHS hospitals except for one crucial difference: no one has to use them, therefore they have competitive pressure put on them. Most healthcare in France is provided by private or not-for-profit organisations. For example in France you can go to a shop and have an X-ray done. You pay for it and are given the X-ray photo. In the UK this is mostly done by the state and the patient os often not even allowed to see the X-Ray.

    2) The killer is the 35 hour week. Midwives recent marched through the streets of Paris to protest about the imposition of maximum working hours, on the grounds that a midwife would be breaking the law if she stayed with a patient when her hours for the week were up.

    President Chirac is opposed to any repeal of the Socialist policy of the 35 hour week. He considers it to be extreme.

  • There was a study in 2003 or 2002 that showed that people in the UK were about four times more likely to die from surgery than the average American. I expect the ratio to be the same in France. Which has become rather infamous for the rate of surgical infections. Nobody cared, however, until Gerard Depardieu’s son lost a leg in the process.

    The funny bit is to hear the usual suspects moan that in a private system, you only get what you pay for. As if a nationalized system was so much better : the rich can still afford better care, and everybody else gets the same lousy level of service. You’re a number and nobody is accountable. Unless you’re famous, of course. But then, as a rich and famous person, how dare you use the public service ? The nerve !

  • Pete (Detroit)

    I had a conversation recently w/ a friend of mine who grew up in Moscow. She didn’t understand why I didn’t want the government providing “health care.” So I explained that the biggest “health issues” in the country (Heart disease, Cancer, morbid obesity, malnutrition, AIDS) all have root causes in the personal habits of the “patient.” She then suggested that the government provide public exercise gyms, but I pointed out that there was no way to enforce people to attend. She suggested then that perhaps they could give tax credits to the people who actually use the gyms, but I pointed out that verification might be an issue. I suggested that we just fine people who refuse to take care of themselves – like make them pay thier own medical bills?

  • Lynne

    The American health care system stinks. I should know, I work for a doctor. We have patients who don’t have insurance that have to quit their jobs and go on welfare in order to get an operation. Just try and get a doctor to see a patient pro bono. They can’t afford to. The doctor I work for does because he is in a good financial postition, but many aren’t. Our system is run by MBA’s who only care about protecting their little kindoms and their jobs. Patients be hanged. I hear that their are waiting lists for operations in socialized medicine countries. AT LEAST THEY EVENTUALLY GET AN OPERATION!!!!!!! Those without insurance in America tend go without essential care or get substanard care in ER’s. When you are dealing with human beings needing survivial, the profit motive is not always the best one. In addition, the lack of a credible insurance program (other than employer based) keeps many of us from starting our own businesses or changing jobs because we are afraid of cancer or some such illness wiping us out financially. My best friend lost her house because of this. Privitized health care stinks. Vive La France!!!!!!

  • Lynne, I have dealt with both systems. You have no idea what you’re talking about. Starting with the ~4,500 foundation/not-for-profit hospitals in the US who do see patients pro-bono.

    The fact that doctors don’t want to deal with them has to do with liabilities and insurance, which have gotten out of whack because, among other things, those well-thinking people on the Left can’t even consider capping them.

    And if you think all doctors in France take people pro-bono, or that everything and everyone is covered, you’re dreaming.

    And yes, you’re right. People eventually get their operation. Assuming they’re still alive when it happens. Or the final bill and consequences have not multiplied because of the considerable wait.

    Socialized medicine is the same shitty service for all. I guess misery does love company.

  • I regularly keep in touch with my friend who is working in France now, and I can say that French medicine is not so bad. They have some things we can be envious of.