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Monday, 18 February 2008 |
The French health service is under threat from rising costs and longer
lifespans. How long can high-quality patient care survive? Robert
Harneis finds the picture is not quite as gloomy as it is often painted.
Move to France and sooner or later you
will be using the French health
service. Once acknowledged as the
best in the world, it is now under the same
pressure as in other countries.
The deficits are huge and no matter how
much money is spent they don’t ever seem to
go away. What’s more, an aging population
and ever-improving methods of treatment are
adding to the expense. But even back in 1947,
its very first year of operation, the Assurance
maladie reported a loss of two billion francs.
Everybody thinks that there is a shortage
of medical practitioners. But according to Dr
Jean Buisson, a retired Toulouse GP now
working for the Médecins du Monde charity,
“There are now 209,000 doctors compared
with only 122,000 in 1971. Not only that, they
do more than their predecessors – more
consultations, operations and other acts.”
So what is going on? “First of all there is a
geographical mismatch,” continued Dr
Buisson. “Doctors prefer the south to the
north, big university towns to small ones and
the town to the country. A recent survey shows
that there are seven times as many specialists
per head of population in the south-eastern
PACA region as in the Nord-Pas-de-Calais.
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Monday, 18 February 2008 |
The quotas ratified by the European Union
in December 2007 are under scrutiny by
President Nicolas Sarkozy, who is looking to
mollify the fishing lobby.
Protection of diminishing fish stocks is
currently managed by quota, but Sarkozy
proposes using France’s presidency of the EU
this year to push for a different system.
In fact, the accepted December quotas are
already a watered-down version of what had
been demanded by the Executive
Commission. The government has announced
aid of €310 million to help fishermen, but
nonetheless northern French ports were
blockaded in mid-January in a protest at
regulations and fuel costs.
Scientists believe cod is seriously
threatened with extinction, and France already
has a reputation for over-fishing in the
Mediterranean.
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Monday, 18 February 2008 |
Opponents of a proposed very-high-voltage
line have called on those living near
similar, existing, lines to answer
questionnaires for a unique, independent
survey of the lines’ effects.
The line would cross Normandy from the
EPR nuclear reactor, under construction on
the Cotentin coast.
The questionnaires have been compiled by
scientists from the new Independent Research
and Information Centre on Electromagnetic
Radiation (CRIREM) at Le Mans.
Existing lines carry 400,000 volts. No
studies have yet been completed in France into
their effects.
In 2004, costs were awarded against RTE,
the grid operator, when a farming couple
attempting to test very high tension effects on
their livestock proved that RTE had reduced
the current, invalidating the study.
See www.criirem.org
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Monday, 18 February 2008 |
José Bové has called off the hunger strike
he began in early January when the
government announced a freeze on the
planting of genetically modified (GM) crops
this year, pending further research to prove its
safety. The only seed which has been
permitted to date in French agriculture is
MON 810 maize, designed by Monsanto, and
sown last year on 22,000 hectares.
Under the ‘precautionary principle’ of the
European Union, a
member state can ban a
GM crop from
cultivation if research
casts doubt on its safety
for public health or the
environment. So far, six
EU states have refused a
total of 10 GM
strains. MON810 alone
has been refused by
four countries.
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Monday, 18 February 2008 |
The launch last month in India of the
world’s cheapest car, the Nano, is causing
a flood of excitement at the boundless revenue
to be gained by its makers, the Tata Group,
and the potential for safer travel for the
country’s expanding richer classes.
The car is a tiny, stripped-down thing,
glued together rather than welded, made more
of plastic than of steel, and claiming to have
emissions which meet current health norms.
Environmentalists worry that the car will
increase India’s heavy pollution problems.
‘French News’ correspondent Richard
Chandless has suggested that such fears are
groundless because the vehicle, unlike the
scooters it is hoped it will replace, is fourstroke,
rather than two-stroke.
However, the Science and Environment
department in Delhi has pointed out that
India’s emissions standards lag behind those
of Europe. The greater fear is that the car will
add to the appalling congestion in cities,
where slow-moving traffic creates massive
extra pollution. The average speed of Delhi’s
traffic is now 9mph, less than half what it was
10 years ago.
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