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Dr Gérald Kierzek (Medical Director of Doctissimo)
This Monday, emergency doctor François Braun was appointed Minister of Health. Journey, political rise, line of conduct: deciphering of this colorful character.
His name begins to be known to the general public. François Braun, 59, an emergency doctor in the regional hospital center of Metz-Thionville, replaces, since Monday, the former deputy of Pas-de-Calais, Brigitte Bourguignon.
A health referent for the government
François Braun is an emergency specialist. Since 2010, he has been head of the emergency department at the Mercy hospital of the regional hospital center of Metz-Thionville and president of the first union of emergency physicians in France, Samu-Urgences, since 2014.
During the first wave of Covid-19, in the spring of 2020, he distinguished himself by his position: he notably alerted the authorities to the dangerousness of the virus and organized the transfer by train of patients from overwhelmed hospitals to less affected.
Last May, it was again he who sounded the alarm and announced that 120 emergency services were in extreme difficulty faced with the “shortage of caregivers” and “back-up beds”, to transfer patients.
At the same time, during the last presidential campaign, the doctor interfered in political life. Alongside Sébastien Mirkek, anesthetist-resuscitator at the Dijon University Hospital, he thus becomes Emmanuel Macron’s “health referent” and participates in the drafting of his health program.
Again in June, he is carrying out a flash mission on unscheduled care, with the aim of “unclogging hospitals this summer”. A report of about sixty pages, which he presented at a meeting in Matignon.
The mission’s 41 proposals were finally validated by the government last Friday.
A nomination that is not unanimous
Despite his meteoric political rise, the vision of the hospital of the emergency doctor – rather liberal – is not unanimous in the medical community. His management of the emergency department of the CHR of Metz-Thionville is particularly criticized.
“Emergencies here are in a sorry state. I don’t see how he is going to manage solutions at the national level while at the local level, he is not doing well”thus reveals Patricia Schneider, the representative of the Sud-Santé-Sociaux union, in the columns of Marianne.
Questions shared by many experts. The appointment of François Braun as Minister of Health is “a real provocation”, according to for example the Association of Emergency Physicians of France, pointing in particular to the proposals made in the recent flash mission which had been entrusted to the new minister.
“We need a minister who has an overview of the health system and who has the capacity and scope to be able to put everything back together… Will he have them in the face of a powerful administration and a fund? Health Insurance which is just as important? But he has a definite advantage: he knows the terrain and the reality of health issues in the provinces in particular”concludes Dr. Kierzek, emergency doctor and medical director of Doctissimo.