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GEN: French MD's Stage Work ActionFrom: art fougner, md (evsono@pipeline.com)Thu Jan 24 07:41:15 2002
This in today's Reuter's ( on pol.net) French physicians strike, challenging Prime Minister Last Updated: 2002-01-23 11:26:33 EST (Reuters Health) PARIS (Reuters) - Physicians across France staged a 24-hour strike on Wednesday aimed at wringing concessions on pay and working conditions from Prime Minister Lionel Jospin's government in the run-up to elections. Three out of four family practice physicians, as well as dentists, surgeons and ambulance staff heeded union calls for a "Day Without Doctors," leaving stretched emergency services to cope with the sick. France's medical sector has been rocked by months of on-off industrial action but the breadth of Wednesday's strike has deeply shocked a country long proud of its health service. The action is an embarrassment to Jospin, a socialist preparing to challenge conservative President Jacques Chirac in presidential elections in April and May. "At just 3 months from presidential elections, this hoo-ha puts the government in greater difficulty as 71% of the French support [the protests]," Le Parisien daily said. Having quelled other public sector protests with the promise of more money, Jospin is under pressure to fund medics' demands for more staff and better pay. Health Minister Bernard Kouchner said on Wednesday that while he understood physicians' grievances, the French health service remained the best in the world with 10% of gross domestic product spent annually on the sector. He said the government could do no more than mediate between physicians and the funding body that pays their fees, since the government only has direct control of hospital spending. The rest is paid via a complicated system of employee contributions to health funds. Health service workers' grievances are many, including poor pay, understaffing and lack of public recognition. Hospital workers complain that a key policy of this government--introducing a 35-hour working week--leaves them desperately short-staffed. They say government promises of 45,000 new posts are insufficient. Family practice physicians, who have refused to be on-call almost every weekend since last November, complain that their call-out and consultancy fees have not been increased in years, meaning they have to work long hours to earn a decent wage. wonder if they have significant malpractice issues? art
-- art fougner, md ich bin ein New Yorker
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