Franck Chauvin named “Mister Palliative Care”

Define a ten-year strategy to better support the end of life in France. This is the mission entrusted by the Minister Delegate for Health Agnès Firmin Le Bodo to Professor Franck Chauvin. He was officially installed on Thursday June 1 at the head of the “think tank” responsible for prefiguring the “pain and palliative care plan 2024-2034” promised by President Macron on April 3 at the same time as a bill legalizing active assistance in dying.

A man with strong convictions

Little known to the general public, this doctor specializing in cancer prevention nevertheless held the presidency, from 2017 to 2022, of the High Council for Public Health (HCSP), a body responsible for developing, monitoring and evaluating the strategy health, but also to advise the authorities on the management of health risks.

The pandemic that is hitting the country in 2020 will give it the opportunity to come out of the shadows a little to step up to the front. Masks, confinement, school closures, the HCSP will produce more than 150 opinions on these controversial issues during the crisis. From March 2020, Franck Chauvin also joined the Covid-19 scientific council set up to inform the government. Those who knew him at the time keep the image of him as a reserved man but with strong convictions and who does not hesitate to defend them, even if it means making a dissonant voice heard.

“Two conceptions then clashed between those who advocated general restrictions of freedoms for the entire population and those who defended more targeted measures on groups at risk and the most affected territories. Franck Chauvin was more on this last position even if the politicians opted for the first, ”recalls Bruno Lina, a figure in virology in Lyon.

His motto: prevention rather than cure

“He is a hard worker who has developed a very personal vision of his subject, public health. A vision more based on the notion of equity than that of equality so dear to the French, adds Professor Jean-François Delfraissy, president of the National Advisory Committee on Ethics and former president of the Covid-19 scientific council. For him, the priority of public action is to reduce health inequalities by directing action towards the most disadvantaged. »

Prevention rather than cure could be the motto that has guided his professional life. After studying oncology and clinical pharmacy at the Faculty of Medicine in Lyon, the city where he was born in 1955, he joined the Léon Bérard Cancer Center to become its Deputy Director General, a position he left in 2002 to teach public health at Jean Monet University in Saint-Étienne, his adopted city.

In 2014, he was behind the creation of the Hygée center – the Greek goddess of health, cleanliness and hygiene – the first cancer prevention platform attached to the Cancéropôle Lyon-Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes. In 2017, he again participated in the launch of Presage, a university institute for prevention and global health which emphasizes the major role of education in public health.

Designing the public health of tomorrow

His in-depth knowledge of the health system and its actors will lead the authorities to entrust him with numerous missions of prospective reflection. The latest dates back to July 2021 when Olivier Véran, then Minister of Health, asked him, at the end of eighteen months of health crisis, to “design the public health of tomorrow”.

This is the title of the report he is submitting in March 2022, a condensed version of strong ideas matured by experience: creating a territorial system that makes it possible to reach all French people wherever they live and direct it towards a culture of prevention which integrates all the components of health – from the physical to the spiritual – and all its determinants – from the way of life to the environment via transport or housing.

Its main task, for the months to come, is to design a development plan for the supply of palliative care, which everyone agrees is very insufficient to cover the growing demand of an aging population.

Flexibility of mind and strength of character

“Palliative care is certainly not his specialty. But not being involved in such a sensitive issue can also be an asset. Especially since Franck Chauvin has both the flexibility of mind to operate syntheses and the strength of character not to let himself be manipulated, including by politicians, ”underlines Bruno Lina.

“The appointment of Franck Chauvin is excellent news, rejoices Denis Malvy, infectious disease specialist in Bordeaux. He is a man of great intellectual rigour, who has a high idea of ​​humanity and a sense of the values ​​of dignity and freedom. With a man of this caliber, we can hope that the job will be done. »

We will have a first idea in mid-July when Franck Chauvin will present the main lines of this ten-year plan, the finalized version of which must be presented at the end of the year. For then, the consultation of stakeholders, health professionals, family caregivers, volunteers, foreign experts can begin. The great project of palliative care is well and truly launched.

—–

---

Source

---