The head of the Paris hospital system, Martin Hirsch, has ignited a heated debate in France by asking whether people who refuse to receive the Covid-19 vaccine should continue to have their treatment paid for by public health insurance.
Within France’s healthcare system, all patients who go to intensive care have full coverage for their treatment, which costs around 3,000 euros (about 18,000 reais) a day and typically lasts from a week to 10 days.
“When free and effective medicines are available… Should people be able to give them up without consequences while we struggle to care for other patients?” Hirschi told a French television network last Wednesday. According to the doctor, he would have raised the issue because healthcare costs are rising too fast, and the irresponsible behavior of some should not compromise the availability of the system to the rest of the public.
Several French health professionals rejected the idea, and some right-wing politicians called for Hirsch’s resignation. Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo, the Socialist candidate in April’s presidential elections, also said she disagreed with his proposal. On Twitter in France, a hashtag calling for the dismissal of the doctor was among the most talked about topics.
Hirsch’s statement was not echoed by Health Minister Olivier Veran. However, the deputy of President Emmanuel Macron’s LREM party, Olga Givernet, said yesterday that “the issue raised by the medical community cannot be ignored”.
Les Republicains MP Sebastien Huyghe – whose bill to force the unvaccinated to pay part of their medical costs was rejected by parliament – said the idea was not to reject the unvaccinated from intensive care wards, but to make them pay a minimum contribution to the cost of your care.
The proposal would be similar to that of the government of Singapore, a city-state with one of the highest rates of Covid-19 infection in the world, where people who refuse to get the vaccine must pay for their medical treatment.
A survey conducted in mid-January in France showed that 51% of French people thought it was fair for unvaccinated people to pay part or all of the bill if they needed intensive care. Earlier this month, Macron declared that his strategy would be to “piss off” those who didn’t want to be immunized.
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