Dear Prime Minister,
We are writing to you today as physicians practising in private hospitals.
Anaesthetists, oncologists, surgeons of all specialities, emergency physicians, palliative care physicians, obstetricians… we have chosen to work in a private hospital.
It’s a choice we’re proud to make.
Excerpt:
We are proud of this, because these 1,000 private hospitals, with their 42,000 doctors, 170,000 employees including more than 120,000 nursing staff their operating theatres and 130 emergency services, are an essential link link in the healthcare chain.
We are proud of this, because private hospitals, by covering more than 80% of the population, they are a fully-fledged player in the public health service, alongside public hospitals.
And yet, our role in the provision of healthcare in France, in every and for all patients, is currently underestimated by the public authorities and too often caricatured.
We do not understand why it is so difficult for private hospitals to make public decision-makers understand that, with 1/3 of them in deficit due to the under-funding of our activities, it will be impossible to maintain them all, in all the territories in which we operate.
We don’t understand why care staff in private establishments, with whom we work every day, are left out of the pay rise measures that apply to their colleagues in public hospitals, when they are already paid less.
We don’t understand why, when we’re on call, it’s so difficult to get fair pay for working nights, Sundays and public holidays, for us and the nursing staff in private hospitals who work alongside us every day.
We are doctors, not managers. But we do know that what is at stake today, behind decisions that appear to be technical and budgetary, is our ability to continue to fulfil our mission as key players in healthcare in all the regions of France.
Read the letter in French
