"Unraveling the social system": towards a social mobilization of health professionals at the start of the school year?

Healthcare workers on the streets for the start of the school year? Following Les Echos ' report that Labor Minister Astrid Panosyan-Bouvet wants to postpone the date from which health insurance begins covering sick leave, some experts are speaking out.

This is the case of doctor Jérôme Marty, RMC columnist and president of the medical union Union française pour une médecine libre (UFMLS). On the set of Les Grandes Gueules this Tuesday, July 22, he criticized Astrid Panosyan-Bouvet's idea of increasing the private sector's three-day waiting period to seven.

In practice, this idea means greater coverage by companies and their insurers, or no compensation for employees without a company agreement.

"Small businesses are going to be shot down. Imagine a company with two employees, one of whom falls ill, and the manager is the one who will pay for the seven days of sick leave. It's a double whammy. Someone is missing, the company is less productive, and it's up to the boss to pay, who will have no choice but to fire his employee and work alone, thus creating unemployment," explains Jérôme Marty.

"Whether we're hospital workers or in the liberal sector, we're fed up with seeing our social system being dismantled. We're planning a silent march for healthcare in September. And I can assure you there will be a lot of people there," says Jérôme Marty.

"We can no longer tolerate patients being made to feel guilty, or held responsible for their illness," recalling Prime Minister François Bayrou's call for "patients to be made responsible."

On the increase in sick leave , particularly for long periods of 18 months or more, Jérôme Marty again quotes François Bayrou, who described these absences as "unexplained." "It's an attack on health insurance. I don't know a single patient who has been off work for eighteen months who hasn't seen their medical advisor (the medical experts from the Health Insurance, editor's note) two or three times [during this period]," adds the president of the UFMLS.

As for short-term sick leave, he links its increase to the rise in teleconsultations, which make it "easier" to receive a sick leave. According to the doctor, young patients who have recently entered the workforce also suffer from difficult relationships with their company (management, understaffing, etc.).

"That's why we asked for the digital sick leave form to include a box labeled 'request for advice from the medical advisor' or 'request for advice from the occupational physician', to be ticked and directed to the patient if necessary. But the [Health Insurance] Fund tells us that there aren't enough occupational physicians," explains Jérôme Marty.