On Thursday, Catherine Vautrin was appointed head of a triple ministry including Labor, Solidarity and Health. A decision which particularly worries health professionals, already faced with numerous difficulties. Guest of Europe 1 midday weekend, the president of the Association of Emergency Physicians, Patrick Pelloux, denounced “great contempt”, and an impression of “lie”. “At the time of Covid, the President of the Republic said ‘whatever it costs, Health above all’. And in fact, everything fell away like a flash in the pan, we are abandoned,” he whispers .
Especially since the Ministers of Health have succeeded one another in recent months: last July, François Braun was replaced by Aurélien Rousseau, who had started numerous projects. But when the immigration law was passed last December, the latter decided to resign, and was replaced by Agnès Firmin-Le Bodo, who acted as interim until the appointment of Catherine Vautrin on Thursday. What Patrick Pelloux regrets: “In the profession, whether my colleagues from liberal or hospital unions, we regret the departure of Aurélien Rousseau because real work had begun. Everything has stopped”.
“It’s Bercy that manages Health”
Beyond the decision to set up a super ministry, the appointment of Catherine Vautrin worries health professionals. “Madame Vautrin who is arriving, who is anti-abortion and who will perhaps have to bring forward the draft constitutional law to include abortion in the Constitution, we do not know if that will happen. She is also against the draft of life. That’s already two big subjects”, warns Patrick Pelloux. The emergency doctor also criticizes the possibility of Georges-François Leclerc becoming Catherine Vautrin’s chief of staff. “He was Roselyne Bachelot’s chief of staff in 2007 and therefore the one who built and built the ‘business hospital’, activity-based pricing, the ‘business manager director’ and who had a very, very large contempt for hospital doctors and social hospital unions.”
If a Secretary of State in charge of Health must be appointed in the coming days, this does not seem sufficient for the president of the Association of Emergency Physicians. “He will not have the purse strings, Social Security and financing. He will not be able to do anything. It is the one who has the money who has the power, and we know very well that it is Bercy who manages Health”, underlines Patrick Pelloux. “There is a discourse towards the hospital which is ultra liberal.”
“Someone who has a big ministry can look pretty on paper, but they should also have put Agriculture, and then Transport too, so that she does everything, and why not be Prime Minister too”, concludes with irony and concern Patrick Pelloux at the microphone of Europe 1.