Medicines in the largest pharmacy in Paris on September 8, 2020
Credit: Martin BUREAU / AFP
He runs after his treatment. As a 15-year-old teenager, Maxime has cystic fibrosis, a disease of genetic origin that attacks his digestive and respiratory systems. Diagnosed at the age of six months, the schoolboy is today directly impacted by the shortage of drugs which is rife in the territory.
Regularly, his parents are therefore forced to travel more than 50 kilometers from their home in northern France, in the hope of finding stocked pharmacies. To maintain his care, necessary for his health, Maxime wrote to the Minister of Health, François Braun, to alert him to the seriousness of the situation.
Guest Focus Sunday on RTL, Maxime returns, alongside his parents, to his fight against the disease and his treatment. Without medication, the college student would have to undergo new operations and could also see his growth stopped at just 15 years old. An untenable situation which worries his parents and which pushed Maxime to appeal to the government.
Testimony. “I asked him if it was normal, in France, to no longer have medication for treatment and I explained my case to him”, he explains, returning to the content of his call for help sent. to the Minister of Health. “He replied very briefly that he was sending this (his description, editor’s note) to the National Agency for the Safety of Medicines and he also gave me a link to declare the medicines that I was missing”. A very insufficient response from Minister François Braun, according to him. “I expected to have a answer on why we are in short supply. I also think that it is not up to us, the patients, to declare the medicines that are missing on a platform”, adds Maxime.
>> Focus is a daily news podcast. From Monday to Thursday, Marion Calais and RTL’s editorial staff discuss a major current event with reporters, correspondents and RTL experts. And Friday is Focus Culture with Anthony Martin and the team of Indulge. And every Sunday, in Focus Sunday Mohamed Bouhafsi takes the time to zoom in on the hot topics of the week and give voice to those who do.