Once again, access to care provoked a heated debate, last night, within the municipal council, between majority and opposition, barely tempered by the announcement of the installation of a scanner and an MRI, validated by the health authority.
Cruel lack of general practitioners, impossibility of obtaining an appointment or finding a treating doctor, “loss of chances for certain patients” (dixit Françoise Lagreu-Corbalan): the painful question of access to care so complicated for Appaméens again caused a fever outbreak last night, at the municipal council, and lively debates between majority and opposition. However, Mayor Frédérique Thiennot arrived with very good news: the upcoming installation of an MRI and a scanner, “validated by the Regional Health Agency”, she announced. “The only equipment of this kind in Ariège… In the private sector”, she added immediately. And to recall that today, “very many Appameans are obliged to go and take these exams in Toulouse”.
Frédérique Thiennot also announced the installation of a general practitioner in the coming weeks. And “the ARS is committed to ensuring that Pamiers welcomes interns in training”, added the mayor, recalling that “four cardiologists settled in Pamiers in January”.
Good news, which Frédérique Thiennot listed, criticizing the opposition for not taking it into account.
But this good news did not prevent the municipal council from experiencing a new outbreak of fever. Michèle Goulier (Pamiers Citoyenne) was irritated by the slowness of the territorial health contract, carried by the community of communes. “When is something going to happen?” asked the elected official, who criticizes the Appamean municipality for passing the ball back to the community of communes: “In this case, Pamiers should have been a locomotive, underlined Michèle Goulier. Instead, Pamiers takes refuge behind the CCPAP”. Frédérique Thiennot then applied herself to recalling the line she had drawn for herself: “Make Pamiers an attractive city, in a global approach to enhancement”. The only way, according to the mayor of the city, to bring in new doctors. Clarisse Chabal-Vignoles (Union pour Pamiers, Trigano) became accusatory: “At the start of your mandate, you let five doctors go to Saint-Jean-du-Falga”, recalled the elected official, which plunged Frédérique Thiennot in cold anger: “From the start, you didn’t understand anything, she replied bluntly. It was not a care project, it was a simple real estate project. What is happening at Lavelanet, or elsewhere, cannot be transposed here”. According to Frédérique Thiennot, the creation of a health center would have had disastrous consequences on the activity of the doctors in place. “I’ve explained it to you twenty times,” hammered the mayor of Pamiers.
Still, the message does not pass, with part of the opposition in any case, that which did not accept the abandonment of the medical house project carried by the former mayor, André Trigano. “You canceled this project at the start of your mandate, recalled Françoise Lagreu-Corbalan. Today, I collect tragic counter stories (1) […] Bad luck. I feel sorry for the Appameans”. Daniel Mémain threw himself into the fray: “It is an exchange which is often renewed in the municipal council, pointed out the elected official. You have expertise in this area, but you give lessons to everyone and you don’t listen to alternative proposals”. Frédérique Thiennot, straight in her boots, answered her “If a medical center were a good idea, I would have done it a long time ago”.