Paris AP-HP Hospitals system Chief, Martin Hirsch, has set a fierce debate, after questioning whether people refusing to vaccinate against COVID-19 should continue to have their treatment covered by the government’s public health insurance scheme.

Under France’s universal healthcare system, all COVID-19 patients at the intensive care unit are fully covered for their treatment, costing about 3,000 euros ($3,340) per day and typically lasts a week to 10 days.

“When free and efficient drugs are available, should people be able to renounce it without consequences … while we struggle to take care of other patients?”
Paris AP-HP Hospitals system Chief, Hirsch said in an interview.

Hirsch said he raised the issue because health costs are exploding and that the irresponsible behaviour of some should not be made to jeopardise the availability of the system put in place for everyone else.

Several French health professionals rejected his proposal, with far-right politicians calling for Hirsch to be fired. Paris Mayor, Anne Hidalgo, who chairs the AP-HP board, doubling as a socialist candidate in the April presidential elections, said she disagreed with his proposal.

A hashtag calling for Hirsch’s dismissal has been trending on Twitter in France following his comments.

Health Minister, Olivier Véran has not commented on Hirsch’s call but Olga Givernet, a lawmaker for President Emmanuel Macron’s LREM party, on Thursday, January 27, 2022, said “the issue as raised by the medical community could not be ignored”.

According to a poll conducted by the Institut Français d’opinion Publique (IFOP), an international polling and market research firm in mid-January, 2022, responses gathered showed that 51% of French people considered it was justified that non-vaccinated people who wind up at the intensive care unit should be made to pay part or all of their hospital bills.

Conservative Les Républicains lawmaker, Sebastien Huyghe, whose bill, intended to make the unvaccinated pay part of their medical costs, but was rejected by parliament, said the idea was not to reject the non-vaccinated from intensive care wards. Explaining that, he sought to make them pay a minimum contribution toward the cost of their care.

The proposal would be similar to Singapore, a city-state with one of the world’s highest COVID-19 vaccination rates in the world, where people who decline vaccines must pay for their medical treatment.

The median bill size for COVID-19 patients that require intensive care is about S$25,000 ($18,483), according to Singapore’s health ministry.

France’s COVID-19 Situation

As of Thursday, January 27, 2022, France records showed that an average of 360,937 cases were reported last week, increasing by 23 percent from the average two weeks ago. The number of deaths also increase by 25 percent.

Since the beginning of the pandemic, at least 1 in 4 residents have been infected, bringing the number of reported cases to 18,242,654. At least, 1 in 512 residents has died from the coronavirus, making a total of 131,008 deaths.

January 2022 has been the month with the highest average cases, while April 2020 was the month with the highest average deaths in France.