French hospitals ask Algeria to pay 31.6 million Euros

French public hospitals ask the Algerian social security, according to French figures, to pay about 31.6 million Euros, which is the equivalent of dues for the therapeutic services that are offered by the Parisian hospitals, and the rest of French public institutions, for patients who are coming from Algeria.

This figure was uncovered after the report that was prepared by the Medical Committee of the French Health Institutions that were entrusted with the role of limiting the outstanding dues of the Parisian hospitals, for the therapeutic services that were provided for foreign patients, and which are estimated at 120 million Euros, an outcome which stopped at the date of November 15, 2014.

In this report, Algeria is ranked first in the list of countries which have debts to pay to French hospitals, with 31.6 million Euros, of the total debts that are owed by all the French hospitals’ customers, reaching 120 million Euros, which is the equivalent of the quarter.

Algeria came, according to the report, before Morocco that is ranked second, by 11 million Euros, then the United States with debts that reach 5.7 million Euros, Belgium which is ranked fourth with 4.9 million Euros, Tunisia fifth with 4.7 million Euros, followed by Italy with 4.1 million Euros.

The document notes that the French hospitals noticed, during the period from 2010 to 2014, a large number of patients who came from Algeria, Morocco, Italy and Kuwait, which has helped to raise the turnout on the French health institutions, by about 9.8%.

The report says that the outstanding debts represent twice the French hospitals deficit, which prompted the French authorities to make a decision of forcing patients or the interests of social security (in the Algerian case), to pay before treatment as from the beginning of next September, so as not to suffer after that from difficulties in collection of receivables.

This issue raised controversy in the French political arena, leading the Attorney, Lionel Luca, of Sarkozy’s “Republican” or Union for a, formerly, popular movement, to interrogate the Minister of Social Affairs, Health and Women’s Rights, Marisol Turin, on the way to collect the outstanding debts.

He also called on the ministry, in a written question, to provide additional details on the status of each country’s debts, and focused on Algeria, which is the largest debtor, and the Kingdom of Morocco, which is second, as for the procedures that will be launched by the French authorities with their counterparts in the countries which are asked to pay debts.

This file left a large controversy in political and media circles, in both France and Algeria, since two years ago, in the wake of the leak of unofficial information that refer to asking the Parisian hospitals, the social security services in Algeria, to pay about 600 million Euros, for the therapeutic services that Algerian benefited from in France, as these figures were refuted by the Algerian party all together.