The head of the Paris hospitals system has sparked a fierce debate across all media by suggesting that people who refuse to be vaccinated against COVID-19 should not have their treatment covered by public health insurance.
Under France’s universal healthcare system, all COVID-19 patients who end up in intensive care are fully covered for their treatment, which costs about 3,000 euros ($3,340) per day and typically lasts a week to 10 days.
“When free and efficient drugs are available, should people be able to renounce it without consequences … while we struggle to take care of other patients?” Martin Hirsch, the director-general of Paris AP-HP hospitals system, said during a televised interview on Wednesday.
Hirsch said he raised the issue because “health costs are exploding and that the irresponsible behavior of some should not jeopardize the availability of the system for everyone else,” according to France24.com.
Don't Miss
Hirsch’s remarks set off a firestorm, with far-right politicians calling for Hirsch to be fired. But Olga Givernet, a lawmaker for President Emmanuel Macron’s LREM party, said on BFM TV on Thursday that “the issue as raised by the medical community could not be ignored”.
The controversy comes as a bill to make the unvaccinated pay some of their medical costs was rejected by the French parliament. Proponents of the bill said the idea was not to reject the non-vaccinated from intensive care units, but to make them pay a minimum contribution toward the cost of their care.
According to the report, “the proposal would be similar to Singapore, a city-state with one of the world’s highest COVID-19 inoculation rates in the world, where people who decline vaccines must pay for their medical treatment. The median bill size for COVID-19 patients that require intensive care is about S$25,000 ($18,483), according to Singapore’s health ministry.”
