News and Latest Information
These are the latest news and findings in French health that you should know about today. Read on and don´t miss out on the panorama of French healthcare.
Macron´s Ambitious Plan For 2020
French President Emmanuel Macron delivers a speech on the reform of the French healthcare system at the Elysee Palace in Paris, Tuesday, Sept. 18 2018. Macron has unveiled plans to France’s health care system, considered one of the best in the world, more efficient and sustainable for the next 50 years.
“My ambition is clear: I want what we call the health care system to be one of the pillars of the welfare state of the 21st century,” those were the exact words of French President Emmanuel Macron. The ambitious plan he presented has a lifespan of 50 years in which he wants France to be completely sustainable and efficient in the delivery of the best healthcare quality in the world. Changes planned include:
- The recruitment of 400 family-doctors with salaries paid by the state to take the health coverage to the families living in the rural areas and also the neighborhoods that don´t have access to the large hospitals. The media called these places “medical deserts” and Macron´s plan is to turn them into oasis.
- Eliminate the quotas for the number of students in medicine, dentistry and pharmacy by the year 2020 and allow as many students into the careers as people willing to attend.
- A new classification for hospitals in which there will be three distinct categories ranging from local health care, to specialized to ultra-specialized. Each one of them will be focused 100% on its priorities and will optimize the care of each patient.
- Private doctors along with other professionals involved in health care will be organizing into groups named “communities” and must be able to respond to any emergency call on a daily basis from 8AM to 8PM. They will be assigned to an area of coverage.
This plan shall cost 3.4 billion Euros until 2022 but shall have continuity for the next five decades.
Smoking Kills (And Paris Too)
According to recent studies at a European level, air pollution in the French capital is really bad. In fact, staying for a year and breathing Paris´ air daily can be the equivalent to smoking 183 cigarettes (roughly half cigarette a day). While it is not the worst case scenario in Europe, it is quite alarming for those who don´t smoke and do it as a healthy measurement. French strategies and efforts for providing state-of-the-art healthcare in every corner of the country might be undermined by this statistic.
This is not to be overlooked or taken as a minor issue since the study states that because of their size, particles can work their way all the way to the lungs and blood stream causing damage and increasing the possibility of a stroke. The carriers of the study, Berkley Earth, assure that air pollution kills more people a year than AIDS, diabetes, malaria and tuberculosis do. They wrap up the study by stating that
Air pollution is arguably the greatest environmental catastrophe in the world today.
The worst case on Earth is China, where just living and breathing can be the equivalent (on bad days) to smoking 3 packs a day.
The French healthcare system covers both public and private hospitals, doctors and other medical specialists who provide French healthcare to every resident in France regardless of age, income or status.
