By Lucy WilliamsonThe UK's health system is buckling under the weight of staff shortages and a lack of beds. In France, meanwhile, there are more doctors and many more nurses, yet its healthcare system is still in crisis.
After years of Covid, and with inflation biting, many say chronic staff shortages and increasing demands are making their work impossible and threatening the French health system.And France's second-largest health union has called an "unlimited walkout" this week, following a fortnight of strikes by French GPs.Image caption,"I made this choice [to be a GP] but now I have a lot of questions about my future," she tells me.
The causes of France's healthcare crisis are complex, but the long-term pressure of an aging population alongside a shortage of medical staff was brought starkly into focus by the Covid pandemic.We are in a very worrying phase where we regularly alert emergency services [about] people who call saying they are going to commit suicideFrance has more doctors per head of population than the UK, and many more nurses.
"At the start [of Covid], people were afraid of the unknown, then a weariness set in," she says. "And today we are in a very worrying phase where we regularly alert emergency services for people who call saying they are going to commit suicide." She describes being put in charge of 30 patients herself, as an overnight nurse. And says the lack of minimum staffing numbers outside intensive care units is putting patients and staff in danger.As well as street demonstrations, hospitals are reporting up to 90% of their staff taking sick leave in protest
The vast majority of GPs in France operate as individual private practices, with 70% of each consultation reimbursed to patients by the French state. But none of this will directly tackle one of the country's biggest healthcare problems: large swathes of rural and suburban France known as "medical deserts", without access to a doctor at all.
A large banner, bright blue against the old stone walls, greets all entrants to the village: advertising vacancies for GPs to work at the new clinic here. It's put a €40,000-a-year hole in the local finances. And it worked: Céline Preux began work here last week.
These days medical services across the globe are seriously being blighted by several problems, not excluding the so called advanced healthcare systems. No clime is near perfect. Countries where medics are rapidly spreading to have their own bizarre circumstances to battle with.