POLICY – Four years and eight months. This is the time it took to Emmanuel Macron to propose his grand plan to fight once morest Endometriosis. Finally, start sketching out the beginnings of a strategy, to be precise.
The President of the Republic, who had promised to tackle the subject head-to-head during the in-between rounds in 2017, published a six-minute video on Tuesday, January 11, on his social networks to announce … three major axes (already known), the launch of calls for projects and the future establishment of a steering committee.
“It’s a mass problem that nobody talks regarding. (…) It was time to talk, to act to facilitate access to care, to invest so that researchers discover the treatments ”thus argues the Head of State, as you can see it below, taking his answer almost word for word to the magazine She in May 2017, when he spoke of “medical research”, “training” of practitioners and “center of excellence.” Excellence has become “expertise”. But the concrete announcements will wait a little longer.
Training, research, center of expertise
Priority issue, Emmanuel Macron wants to put the package on research to achieve better knowledge of the causes, factors that promote this disease still unknown to the general public and an improvement in medical care. The goal, in the words of the Elysée: “to achieve a reduction in pain and to reduce the time of diagnosis”, at a time when, on average, seven years elapse between the declaration of the first symptoms and the installation. a diagnosis.
The President of the Republic also intends to insist on access to care throughout the territory, while more than one in ten women is affected by this gynecological pathology. He wants at least one “recourse and expertise center” per region, capable of handling the most difficult cases, as is done today in Lyon, Rennes or Bordeaux.
No budget announced
A proposal with still very vague contours. The Presidency of the Republic does not wish to give the amount of the envelope that will be allocated to these centers of excellence nor to commit to a specific timetable. The steering committee, which will soon be set up by Olivier Véran, plans to establish “national specifications” and then give the keys to the ARS who will have to “launch calls for projects in the regions.”
Nothing unusual wants to say the Elysee. “This is a national strategy, an ambition, and the launch of a large-scale movement on the disease. Concrete implementations will de facto take place with a steering committee ”, we insist, as was the case, for example, with the strategy to fight cancer.
This interministerial committee will notably involve the Ministry of Youth and Sports, Labor, Higher Education and National Education. Installed “in the coming days”, it is he who will be responsible for refining and setting in motion the famous strategy in all sectors of society.
Still not recognized as a “long-term illness”
So many leads formulated in the report of the MEP and gynecologist Chrysoula Zacharopoulou. Ordered by Olivier Véran last spring, returned to the tenant of the Elysee Palace on Tuesday morning, the forty-page document proposes to improve the training of doctors on the subject, to set up institutional communication for the general public or even to sensitize contact professionals (teachers, facilitators, educators and social workers).
These elements will have to be definitively decided by the steering committee. One thing seems certain despite everything: the President of the Republic should not take over one of the flagship proposals of several leading associations on the issue, supported by various political parties, namely: the recognition of endometriosis as a “long-lasting condition.” (ALD).
The measure, defended next Thursday by the rebels in the National Assembly, and which allows “100% coverage of expenses related to care and treatment”, according to the deputy Clémentine Autain, does not appear in the report of the LREM MEP.
“The question arose”, explained the Elysee on the sidelines of the announcements of the Head of State, but “the HAS (High Authority of Health) came to the conclusion that the criteria were not met” to transform “piecemeal” recognition of the disease in ALD, according to criteria of gravity or severity (as is currently the case for endometriosis) in automatic recognition. A promise for a next five-year term?
See also on The HuffPost: Énora Malagré tells us regarding the day when endometriosis spoiled her Cannes Film Festival
This article originally appeared on The HuffPost and has been updated.
