Auscultation of a patient by a general practitioner in his office. Drawing. – S. ORTOLA / 20 MINUTES
- The president of the Bouches-du-Rhône doctor federation is worried about the number of liberal doctors who take early retirement, for fear of dying from the coronavirus.
- For Michel Sciara, the coronavirus can have serious consequences on the mental state of doctors.
–
They would be the great forgotten of this health war, when they are soldiers on the front line. After weeks of mobilization against the coronavirus, liberal doctors are at the end of their nerves and energy, according to doctor Michel Sciara. The
doctor of Istres, also president of the federation of the doctors of France in the
Bouches-du-Rhône, alert on the consequences, in particular psychological, of the coronavirus on general practitioners and other liberal doctors who fear for their health and their lives.
What is the state of mind of your colleagues, especially after the dozen deaths of liberal doctors from Covid-19, including one recently in the Haut-Rhin?
You have to put yourself in the place of a liberal doctor today. He will have to fight alone and without a weapon in the face of an illness that we do not know. It is unacceptable to us. Many doctors, close to retirement, have brutally closed their offices, without giving any sign of life. And why ? Because they are afraid of dying from coronavirus. And you know, death, we know what it is, we have faced it since our medical studies.
My partner for example is 65 years old. A few months ago, he was diagnosed with cancer. He said he felt able to hold out until retirement next December. But since the crisis, he started half-time and he plans to stop before. In Istres, we have twelve doctors who have retired in two years. If in addition, half a dozen stops, it’s the complete disaster. We are already unable to meet the demand …
The gentleman you have on the phone also has questions. He is 67 years old. He has been working for forty years. He forgot to stop. He manages a lot of things, and with the Covid, we are on permanent burnout, while the state has no regard for liberal doctors. What is the point of dying on stage, when one has no gloves, no masks? What is the point of exercising in these conditions and not enjoying your retirement? What good is it to end your life dying from the Covid in your office without being able to be buried by your children? What is holding me back?
Why do you say lack of consideration?
When you have an illness, what do you do? You call your doctor. General practitioners are therefore automatically the first on the front line in relation to this disease. So when you hear that the state favors overcoats and dungarees in the hospital, it’s a joke. We were assigned six FFP2 masks and 12 surgical masks each week. This morning, I screwed up two masks in two minutes in front of a patient who died of laughter, because the used rubber band cracked. And do you know why ? Because we are given expired masks. It is as if, in the 1940s, we were given bayonets as a rifle against the over-equipped Germans. We have blouses sewn by seamstresses! It’s ridiculous … But this ridiculous kills doctors in France.
What consequences can this situation have on your profession?
Our mental health is under severe strain. Me if I was unhappy in love or with my children, there is something to throw a bridge … But the doctor does not fall into depression right away. He will fall into depression after the crisis. The first difficulty is the heaviness of the charges. A doctor who performed between 25 and 30 procedures per day managed to cope. Today, doctors can only see 10 people a month. They are no longer able to cope, so they are experiencing life stress.
Add to that the stress for his patients. I have already lost ten Covid-19 patients. And it’s trying. These are people I have known for a long time. It hurts. It’s hard to say we’ll see each other again. Doctors are humans as fragile as any other.
–
