Angry French doctors confront Emmanuel Macron as coronavirus overwhelms hospitals

Doctors demand higher salaries and a rethink of the country’s public health system that found itself quickly swamped with thousands of virus patients

Macron acknowledged mistakes in reforming the national hospital system and promised to launch a new investment plan

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French President Emmanuel Macron. Photo: Reuters

Published: 10:31pm, 15 May 2020Updated: 8:15am, 16 May 2020

French doctors faced off with President Emmanuel Macron at a leading Paris hospital on Friday, demanding more investment and a rethink of the country’s once-renowned public health system that found itself quickly overwhelmed by tens of thousands of virus patients.

Macron acknowledged mistakes in reforming the national hospital system, which has faced years of cost cuts, leaving medical facilities in one of the world’s richest countries short of staff, masks and breathing machines needed to fight the coronavirus crisis.

“For months I was asking for equipment, and we had only three days to fight against the virus,” Martin Hirsch, head of the Paris hospital network, told Macron.

France’s infections abruptly multiplied over a short period in March.

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As the virus raced across France in March and saturated several hospitals, Macron had to deploy the armed forces to build the country’s first-ever peacetime field hospital and move patients and doctors around in military transport jets and specially fitted high-speed trains.

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