According to practitioners at the Strasbourg hospital, around one in ten patients come to their departments with a fake health pass. A phenomenon whose extent the Interior Ministry revealed last week. Doctors call on patients to reason and to be honest.
Around 182,000 fake health passes are circulating in France according to estimates from the Ministry of the Interior. Sometimes some of these scammers end up in the hospital. Many then do not dare to admit that they have lied, which can pose real problems for the caregivers who have to take care of them. There is no quantified study on the question, but Frédéric Leyret, director of the Saint-Vincent hospital group in Strasbourg, estimates, by discussing with his colleagues, that approximately one in 10 hospital patients would have a false health pass.
“We know that there are fake health passes circulating. People who claim to be vaccinated and who are not. This can lead to delays in treatment and delays in diagnosis. It is an unnecessary risk. that patients take. We, caregivers, are not here to lecture. We have an absolute ban on denouncing anything. So patients must give doctors all the elements to treat them as best as possible, “he explains. -he.
The police are stepping up their controls
On Friday, AFP learned from a source close to the matter of the dismantling, at the beginning of December, of a network which made it possible to create between 5,000 and 10,000 false health passes for a profit of around two million euros. According to the first elements of the investigation, the counterfeiters recovered the identifiers of pharmacists on the site of the National Order of Pharmacists.
Faced with the proliferation of fake health passes, the police and gendarmerie have stepped up their digital investigations and listed other operating methods, including the purchase of fake vaccination certificates on the internet and the fraudulent use of a QR code assigned to a third party . The authorities also track down health professionals or administrative agents who provide false passes.