France's healthcare crisis: What you should know

ANKARA

France, among other European countries, is currently facing a risky healthcare crisis due to staff shortages, burnout among healthcare workers, and medicine supply issues.

France in recent weeks saw numerous doctors' strikes and protests: They protested and pushed for better wages and working conditions even as the country suffered a "tripledemic" of coronavirus, flu, and bronchiolitis.

General practitioners, considered the second pillar of the French healthcare system, were on strike between Dec. 26 and Jan. 8, seeking better working conditions and raises in payments.

One of the protesting doctors told Anadolu Agency: "150 people died in December in emergency units as they didn’t get treatment in time."

"One medical intern commits suicide every week in France," he added. "France currently needs 60,000 nurses, while 180,000 others quit the healthcare sector because they couldn’t take it anymore."

Strikes, shortages

Official Research, Studies, Evaluation and Statistics Department (DREES) figures show that as of Jan. 1, 2022, the country had a total of 228,858 doctors, including 99,941 general practitioners, along with 637,644 nurses younger than 62.

The French social security institution reported that on Jan. 1, 2021, France had 339 doctors per 100,000 inhabitants.

The lack of personnel and the rising number of patients due to winter illnesses led to long wait times in emergency departments.

Lina Nejjari, a diabetes nurse at Gonesse Hospital in Val-d'Oise, a department north of Paris, last week told Anadolu Agency that patients can wait up to five to 10 hours in emergency units.

Addressing healthcare workers in Essonne, central France last week, President Emmanuel Macron urged a rethinking of the organization of working time at hospitals.

He also expressed his wish to more than double the number of medical assistants – currently around 4,000 – to 10,000 by the end of 2024, adding that 6 million French people do not have access to an attending physician.

Medicine hard to find

Added to burnout and lack of staff is the problem of medicine shortages: Paracetamol and children’s antibiotics are hard to find in pharmacies due to supply issues.

French Health Minister Francois Braun last week told broadcaster France 2 that pharmacies are struggling to provide those medicines due to rising demand.

Braun explained that the demand for the pain reliever paracetamol rose 13% amid the flu epidemic, something the producing companies did not foresee.

"We need two months to be totally replenished and fill our stocks," he said about the antibiotic amoxicillin, adding that things will be easier for paracetamol.

Vie Publique, the French official website on public policies, said in July 2021 that France ranks fifth in the world and fourth in Europe in terms of pharmaceutical production, behind Switzerland, Germany, and Italy.

"The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted France and the EU's dependence on foreign countries in the pharmaceutical sector," a statement said.

Vie Publique cited a parliamentary report from June 2021 about the supply chain of medicines in France stressing the importance of "health sovereignty."

The report urged authorities to invest more in research projects, to encourage public and private partnerships, to strengthen legal mechanisms to prevent and manage shortages and relocate the production of primary medicines at risk of shortage.