The Minister of Health has announced several measures to fight against medical deserts, which should see the light of day from September.
Too many cities without doctors, of underserved regions. As the medical deserts progress in France, the Minister of Health has announced that she will carry out a “large-scale” plan to combat this problematic phenomenon. Certain axes were presented at the beginning of July within its initial roadmap. The newspaper The echoes provides some details on these guidelines which should be implemented in September.
The first step will be to double the number of multidisciplinary health centers, currently numbering 1,200 in the region. The remuneration of the medical teams of these care centers should increase by 50% as soon as the tariff agreement signed by Marisol Touraine, just before her departure, will be published in Official newspaper.
Other levers
But these groupings of liberal doctors cannot constitute the alpha and the omega of the policy of fight against the medical deserts. Indeed, the attractiveness of these centers has not yet been acquired by physicians.
Agnès Buzyn therefore insists on other levers, such as the development of outpatient internships, mixed medical practice (in town and in hospital), as well as on telemedicine in order to relieve the workload of doctors.
On the other hand, it refuses to implement the obligation to install doctors in the most difficult areas. “Countries have done it and it was not conclusive”, she underlined during a recent visit to the medical center of Renazé (Mayenne), quoted by France Blue.
Bonus
The minister does not plan either to increase aid for installation in a medical desert, but rather to “reinforce the bonus for specialists who come to practice in an isolated territory for a day,” said The echoes.
In addition, the government is preparing to publish an official map of medical deserts in France. Far from being cosmetic, this measure makes it possible to target the means necessary to deploy in order to strengthen access to care. The number of people and regions affected could be revised upwards, from five million people living in a medical desert to 12 million people.
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