Nearly two-thirds of French people have already had to give up seeking treatment, whether for economic reasons or because they were unable to obtain a consultation within a reasonable time.
Worrying figures. Nearly two-thirds of French people (63%) have already had to give up care, for economic reasons or because they were unable to obtain a consultation within a reasonable time. These are the results of a BVA survey for France Assos Santé published this Sunday, November 17 in the Sunday Newspaper (JDD).
In detail, 44% of respondents say they had to wait too long to get an appointment, 25% question the lack of doctors available at a reasonable distance from their home, 41% explain that they gave up because the rest was too large and 30% were unable to advance the costs.
And if 63% of people questioned have given up care or have postponed it, this proportion rises to 72% among individuals whose net monthly income is below 1,500 euros per month, to 74% in the group of age of 25-34 years and 77% for people with disabilities. For the authors of the survey, these figures “thus confirm the link between economic vulnerability and access to care”.
Among the most modest, a quarter of the beneficiaries of the CMU-C or the complementary health aid (ACS) have already been refused an appointment because of their status, worry the analysts.
17% of respondents have already been to the emergency room for lack of an available doctor
Regarding delays, over the past two years, 17% of respondents had to go to the emergency room because there was no doctor available quickly enough. Because to obtain an emergency medical appointment, the people questioned reported an average delay of three months and two days to see an ophthalmologist, two months and three days for a dermatologist, one month and 23 days for a gynecologist and one month and 14 days for an ENT specialist.
Finally, 67% of those questioned have already been confronted with cost overruns to consult a specialist and for 58%, the remaining costs have increased in recent years.
“These results do not surprise us because they correspond to what comes back to us from the field. But they worry us”, declares Féreuze Aziza, health insurance project manager at France Assos Santé, at the JDD.
These results come as a strike agitates the emergency sector since March and that France is facing an unprecedented medical desert. According to a study carried out by DREES about a year ago on the subject, it takes an average of 6 to 80 days to get a consultation with a doctor, depending on his specialty. Unsurprisingly, general practitioners are the ones with the shortest lead times: 6 days on average between contact and consultation.
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