Hospital staff throughout France staged massive demonstrations last Friday to protest against staff shortages and health budget restrictions imposed by the government. About 8000 doctors and other staff in Paris stopped work for three hours to attend rallies, and thousands marched through Rennes, Marseilles, Lyons, and a dozen other cities.
Demonstrators denounced the “rationing of health care,” first introduced by former right wing prime minister Alain Juppé in 1995 to reduce the growing deficit of the health insurance branch of the Sécurité Sociale (France's social insurance system).
The reforms, then strongly criticised by the leftwing opposition, were nevertheless continued after socialist Lionel Jospin became prime minister in 1998, and they have led to thousands of hospital beds being cut and the number of hospital staff being reduced.
Hospital expenditure in France accounts for about 40%of total healthcare costs. The overall hospital budget, set at Fr270bn (£23bn; $37bn) for the year 2000, is deemed to be insufficient, particularly at a time when the country's finances seem to be healthier than they have been in recent years.
According to Dr Rachel Bocher, president of the National Union of Hospital Doctors, about 20%of hospital positions are not filled. Many of the medical posts, particularly in acute wards, are now taken up by some 3500 graduates of foreign medical faculties, who are on temporary employment and are paid about half as much as their French colleagues.
Most hospital administrators complain of a shortage of nurses as well as of doctors, and waiting lists have lengthened. In some cases, patients have had to be moved to a remote facility or wait on a stretcher.
Increasingly, young medical graduates shun hospital and turn to private practice instead. In 1998 about 80%of medical graduates chose private practice, a huge percentage in a country where public hospitals have long been the backbone of health care.
Earlier in January unions representing nurses, hospital doctors, hospital surgeons, doctors on emergency service, and hospital administrators called for strikes to protest against working conditions and lack of means to care for patients.
The hospital protests are peaking at a time when France is faced with unrest in other areas, including such vital sectors as public transport, postal services, and income tax administration.
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MYCHELEDANIAU/AFP
French hospital staff went on strike last week to protest over staff and budget cuts