“It's the death of medical transport”: hundreds of taxi drivers disrupt traffic around Lyon and Toulon on Monday, to protest against an agreement currently being negotiated with Health Insurance including lower pricing for medical transport. sick.
Hazard lights on, some 150 vehicles were already parked before dawn, in single files, on an interchange west of Lyon, without completely blocking traffic. “Taxis on strike”, “medical taxi in danger”, we could read on some.
Nicolas Galliot, 43, traveled from Clermont-Ferrand. At the head of a taxi company, medical transport represents 60 to 70% of his turnover. “But for country taxis, it can go up to 100%,” he said.
If this agreement is adopted, “it will be to the detriment of my employees, the value of our licenses, but above all patients,” he says.
In order to make 300 million euros in savings on medical transport, the Barnier government wants to force taxis and medical transporters to negotiate measures with Health Insurance, under penalty of imposed price reductions.
In addition, a decree implementing the social security budget for 2024 provides that a patient can no longer refuse, with some exceptions, shared medical transport, under penalty of having to advance the costs and being reimbursed only on the basis shared transportation. Patients must also be treated in less than 45 minutes, and by geographic area with a kilometer detour limit per patient.
“Not only are we going to wait a very long time to fill the car, we are going to make endless rounds, but we are also going to deteriorate the service that we have put in place for years with patients,” explains to the 'AFP Abdel Green, president of the Federation of Independent Taxis of the Rhône (FTI69).
– Bivouac –
Coming from Puy-de-Dôme, Isère, Drôme, Loire and Haute-Loire, taxi drivers notably blocked several lanes of the A7, the A43 and the A46, causing several tens of kilometers of traffic jams or slowdowns at the entrance to the Lyon metropolitan area.
In the heart of the city, in front of the Edouard Herriot hospital, there were around thirty of them parking and distributing leaflets around 7:00 a.m., while warming up over a coffee.
In medical transport, “the approach is not the same as with a client who is picked up at the station”, underlines Mohammed, 36, sitting in his stationary vehicle and with almost 90% of his work is medical transportation.
“For most patients, during the journey, it's a kind of liberation. They don't feel sick when they're in the vehicle. It allows them to forget. They tell us their worries, we tell them ours “, he illustrates.
“And with the new agreement, they will no longer have the choice of carrier,” adds the Lyon driver.
Concretely: “It's death for us”, summarizes his colleague Adil, 42 years old and ten years in the profession, next to him. “If it has to last a month, it will last a month. We are even ready to go up to Paris,” he warns.
The taxis mobilized in the Lyon metropolitan area must converge throughout the day towards the city center to meet from 6:00 p.m. at Place Bellecour, where they intend to bivouac overnight.
Some disturbances in Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur were also noted in the morning, particularly around Toulon.
Several entrances to the city center were disrupted, causing a few kilometers of traffic jams, and the Toulon tunnel was closed, Vinci told AFP.
Several processions also left the area around Marseille to converge at the Lançon-de-Provence toll in Bouches-du-Rhône.
“These reforms not only weaken our profession, they also weaken the entire health system,” regrets the Bouches-du-Rhône “Taxis en route 13” union in a press release.
“With the new convention, we are heading towards precariousness and the loss of 40,000 craft businesses,” adds Leïla Ghorzi, its president, to AFP.
