The agendas of allergists are panicking. With the arrival of spring, they record a peak of 26% more appointments, according to a study conducted by Doctolib.
Every spring, the same parade. Allergics, with runny noses, itchy throats, itchy eyes, fill the waiting rooms in doctors’ offices. Doctolib, a player in online appointment booking, has measured the phenomenon.
According to a study of 10,600 practitioners, allergists record up to 26% more appointments in their diaries, compared to other months of the year. So that their specialty must respond to an increase in attendance of 29% compared to other specialists.
30 days of waiting on average
As a result, patients are the first victims of what can be described as saturation. The waiting times to obtain an appointment with this specialist have indeed increased considerably. According to investigators, it now takes an average of one month (30 days) of waiting in early April to obtain the holy grail of skin tests (prick-test).
And the outlook is hardly more reassuring for the coming weeks. The study predicts 5 weeks of waiting in early May and up to 7 weeks in early June.
With a concrete consequence: if you wait until mid-May to make an appointment, you will have a hard time seeing an allergist before the end of spring, on June 21.
Concerned allergists
Dr Pascale Mathelier-Fusade, allergist in Paris, confirms this trend. In a press release, she explains that “as 20% of the population is allergic, allergists see a very large influx of new patients every year in the spring, and the practices are saturated”.
As a reminder, this proportion of new patients also explodes in the spring. It rose to 28%, or more than a quarter of their consultations.
.
