“It is not because of patients that our health system is in difficulty,” says the president of Médecins du monde

Jean-François Corty, president of Médecins du monde, calls for us to stop “blaming patients” and instead “carry out a fight around the defense of a strong social state”.

“It is not because of patients that our health system is in difficulty”says Jean-François Corty, president of Médecins du monde, Thursday December 25 on franceinfo. While discussions on the budget are due to resume at the beginning of January, the president of the NGO which campaigns for universal and sustainable access to healthcare is pleading for “defense of a strong social state” while “precariousness is increasing, and the figures are there to prove it.”

“In terms of poor housing, nearly 350,000 people live on the streets, 4 million people are poorly housed in total, an increase of 150% in ten years,” explains Jean-François Corty. “More and more people are living on the street with clinical conditions and chronic illnesses that are difficult to follow in these conditions. Many patients are left behind by the health system which itself is suffering”he laments.

As part of the discussions on the 2026 budget, which are interrupted until January after the vote on a special law, Jean-François Corty is indignant at the proposals of certain parliamentarians. “We cannot ignore the nature of the discussions that took place during this vote, particularly on the health aspect where many of the speeches of elected officials focused on the patients who would be in situations of abuse, rather than on the fact that our social State is less and less strong and is disengaged”he protests.

“This has resulted in proposals which involve the perpetual questioning of state medical aid (AME). We have also attacked precarious French people – or the French in short – in their access to care, by discussing, for example, the questioning of ALD, long-term illnesses, by trying to attack medical deductibles”two proposals which have, for the moment, been rejected. “But what happened was a increase in mutual insurance packagesand the French will pay the price for that.”he sighs. “We have a trend towards privatization, towards the financialization of the health field which accentuates inequalities, because there are more and more precarious French people who have difficulty obtaining treatment”, evoking the “more than 500,000 elderly people who are in great precariousness” or students who postpone recourse to mutual insurance.

“We must stop blaming patients and the French. We must instead wage a fight around the defense of a strong social state”insists the president of Médecins du Monde. “We must reaffirm what the National Council of the Resistance, in the aftermath of the Second World War, took on, that is to say, creating a united health system, where the richest pay according to what they have, but where we have the same medical response for everyone,” he explains. “When you explain this notion today, you come across as a weirdo, a ‘woke'”regrets Jean-François Corty. “I think that today, the National Council of the Resistance, in the mouths of many political actors, would come across as totally out of step. It is absolutely astonishing. At Médecins du monde, we defend a united health system and we take responsibility for it”he concludes.