In the post below we include an AFP story reporting on the French Health Minister's civic appeal to medical students and retired doctors for assistance during France's current heat wave. What AFP didn't report was just why the Health Minister was so compelled and the urgency of his request.

FRENCH SURGEONS, OTHER SPECIALISTS STRIKE

PARIS July 24, 2006 (AP) - Some surgeons and specialists in France's private clinics went on strike Monday, ignoring pleas from the health minister and emergency room doctors worried about treating patients during a deadly heat wave.

The strike raised fears that patients from private clinics would overwhelm doctors at public hospitals already busier than usual treating victims of heat-related illnesses. ... The strike, which was to continue on Tuesday, was called by the Union of Surgeons of France [Union des Chirurgiens de France, UDCF] to demand an increase in the fees they can charge, denounce a rise in insurance premiums and protest that some equipment is no longer reimbursed by the state.

Preliminary figures showed that some 26 percent of surgeons, anesthetists and obstetricians at private clinics had walked off the job, the Health Ministry said, with 111 clinics affected out of a possible 747 [~15%].

Patrick Pelloux, president of an association of emergency room physicians [Association des médecins urgentistes hospitaliers de France, AMUHF], said he was baffled by the surgeons' decision to strike.

"There comes a point when, faced with the risks of a heat wave, there is an honorable side to carrying out one's mission," he told France-2 television.

As cynical as we are, even we would have thought the higher calling of the medical profession would trump a union holiday in the midst of a French emergency. Even we are surprised. And appalled.

About 30 people have died from the scorching heat wave over the last 10 days, health authorities said.

The Fédération des Médecins de France (FMF), the umbrella union for the UDCF, in a press release supporting the striking surgeons, is "astonished" by charges of irresponsibly striking and makes the brassy argument that things are not much improved since the 2003 heat wave, that the solution is home care not the emergency room, and that "the pathetic appeal to retired doctors and students won't fill this deplorable absence." (L'appel pathétique aux retraités et aux étudiants ne comblera pas cette absence déplorable.) If things are not much improved since the 2003 heat wave, and if retired doctors and medical students cannot fill the need as FMF contends -- well, that argues against the strike, not for it.

40 DIE FROM HEAT WAVE IN FRANCE

PARIS July 25, 2006 (AP) - Forty people have died in a heat wave that has gripped France for nearly two weeks, health officials said Tuesday.

The Institut de Veille Sanitaire (InVS) will publish a detailed report on heat-related deaths-to-date, due out tomorrow.

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