Doctors take to the streets

HOSPITAL STAFF PROTEST ACROSS FRANCE OVER COST-CUTTING PLANS FOR HEALTH CARE – WHICH THEY SAY WOULD HIT SERVICES DOCTORS and hospital staff are taking to the streets in Paris and across

France today to protest planned cost-cutting reforms in the health service. They say Health Minister Roselyne Bachelot’s Hospital, Patients, Health and Territories proposals turn hospitals

into businesses, more concerned with money than health. Ms Bachelot has rebuffed the protest, saying doctors should read what the proposals said instead of making their own “cartoon

version”. Doctors’ powers would be better organised and better protected than the present system where there was no clear control, she said. The street protest saw doctors marching alongside

nurses, executives and office staff. Meanwhile, 25 hospital department heads signed a letter of protest against the minister’s measures saying they would mean massive unjustified cuts in

ancillary care staff. The Bachelot plan gives power to hospital directors – non-doctors – to decide the finances of the establishment and to appoint top medical staff. At present such

decisions are made between the director and medical staff elected by colleagues. However, the proposals are also seen to penalise hospitals which treat difficult cases, the ones which cost

most and are the least profitable. It could also lead to some doctors having to refuse treatment on the grounds of cost. Elsewhere, the main proposal is for regional health agencies

combining and reorganising local resources: which could see certain hospitals lose specialities to neighbours. One measure also looks to get rid of the areas with poor medical coverage; by

giving incentives including grants to medical students to move in. Photo:Besoindair