The National Assembly will look, from this Monday, June 12, on a bill aimed at fighting against medical deserts. Among the measures mentioned, an amendment on the conditioning of the installation of doctors in areas already well provided with caregivers.
How to fight against medical deserts? The question is back on the table again as a bill from the presidential majority is presented to the National Assembly on Monday. In this context, a transpartisan group of deputies intends to wrest real “regulation” in the installation of caregivers, against the advice of the government.
Should the installation of doctors be conditional on the lack of caregivers in a territory? For Frédéric Valletoux, deputy of the presidential camp (Horizons group), this is not the short-term solution. For Guillaume Garot, elected from the opposition (socialist group), it is an essential “lever”.
Towards a regularization of installations?
Frédéric Valletoux’s text for the “territorial commitment of health professionals” will give the National Assembly the opportunity to decide, from this Monday evening or Tuesday, on this subject of major concern for the French people access to care.
Co-signed by some 200 deputies of the majority and supported by the government, the bill intends to “increase the participation of health establishments in the permanence of care”. Thus private clinics will be used more to ensure emergencies, explains the deputy of Seine-et-Marne.
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If Guillaume Garot supports the spirit of the text, he intends to take advantage of the public session to introduce a much more radical “lever”: the “regulation” of the installation by the Regional Health Agencies (ARS). “Health can no longer depend on our postal code”, insists the elected representative of Mayenne.
To convince, several months ago he launched a tour of France of medical deserts, bringing together around his own text a transpartisan group of 207 deputies from almost all groups, excluding the RN.
But not having obtained the inclusion of his text on the agenda of the National Assembly, he wants to take advantage of the window of opportunity offered by the Valletoux proposal to pass his measures by way of amendment.
A casus belli for liberal doctors
Calling for “political courage”, Guillaume Garot intends to ensure that liberal doctors and dental surgeons can only settle “by right” in areas suffering from a shortage of caregivers. To settle in an area that is already well provided for, they would have to obtain authorization from the ARS, which could accept it, for example if another professional leaves the territory.
An adoption of this principle of “regulation” would be experienced as a casus belli by several representatives of liberal doctors, who already consider that the Valletoux version text goes too far. “Distributing scarcity better will not make anyone richer in doctors”, also believes Frédéric Valletoux.
Opposed to the regulation, Elisabeth Borne explained on France 3 to act by “a whole series of measures”, from the abolition of the “numerus clausus” to train more doctors, to medical assistants to allow practitioners to see more patients.
The number of health centers, where doctors can practice with nurses in particular, must also increase from around 2,300 today to “4,000 at the end of the five-year term”, she added.