Health: "Overworked" doctors rebel against unnecessary and time-consuming certificates

A certificate for entry into kindergarten, another for entry into a chess or pétanque club... The requests that general practitioners have to respond to are sometimes bizarre and border on the absurd. "It's turning into a Prévert-style inventory," describes Dr. Jérôme Marty, a general practitioner in Fronton (Haute-Garonne), faced with the case of "the guy who plays rugby who is asked for a certificate to play ping-pong."

These "absurd" certificates – a term that has given its name to a dedicated website launched by the College of General Medicine – also leave Dr. Nathalie Regensberg de Andreis "dreaming." She, like many of her peers, is often asked to justify the absence of a sick child from school "so that the parents can be reimbursed for a day of canteen time." "By the time we see the child, they are sometimes already cured," adds Dr. René-Pierre Labarrière. "There should be a certain amount of trust between the institution that requests them and the parents to avoid this," adds this general practitioner in Annecy (Haute-Savoie).

This type of request "takes up time for patients who really need it," regrets Dr. Marty, president of the UFML-S doctors' union. He sees it as "a society of complaints and the risk of continual prosecution": too bad if the doctor is "overworked," "what they want is to protect themselves" in the event of a "glitch." When contacted, the French Federation of Sports for All, which brings together a large network of clubs, organizers, and volunteers, did not respond.

Faced with this inflation, doctors are fighting back. The Northern Departmental Council of the Order of Physicians (CDOM59) is offering standard documents to say no while still providing education. Such as when a high school requires a certificate of absence of allergies for CAP training. "No law makes the presentation of a medical certificate, whatever it may be, mandatory for CAP registration" and "moreover, it is impossible to rule on the absence of allergies 'a priori'," states this standard response.

The website certificats-absurdes.fr also provides tools and arguments for doctors. Thus, in clubs affiliated with a sports federation, it is no longer necessary for minors to provide a medical certificate since the decree of May 7, 2021, to obtain or renew a license, or register for a competition. Such a certificate is only required "when the answers to the minor's health questionnaire lead to a medical examination," the website specifies.