It is an answer that she formulates about twenty times a day on average: “I’m sorry, we are not taking a new patient. “ A sentence followed, inexorably, by the same admission of helplessness: “I’m sorry, I couldn’t tell you who to contact, there are no more doctors here, we have to look further. “ Corinne O., 51, has an official job: part-time secretary in the Pasteur cabinet, a small medical practice from another era, with its old-fashioned orange tiling and curtains blackened by the years, planted in the heart of the center open-air shopping center in Les Merisiers, a popular district of Mantes-la-Ville (Yvelines); and an unofficial role: it is responsible for blocking the hundreds of citizens who are desperately seeking an attending physician. Corinne O. works for doctors Patrick Lefoulon and Catherine Gryb, 63 years old and 57 years old, two of the four general practitioners in the city. Four doctors for 22,000 inhabitants. Only four doctors.
Mantes-la-Ville, classified by the regional health agency as a priority intervention zone (ZIP), is one of the areas most affected by the lack of doctors. In this urban medical desert, the Lefoulon-Gryb couple is on edge, on edge. No more home visits, ” the more time “. No more free consultations – without an appointment -, “It had become unmanageable, we had up to fifty people in three hours”.
“Patrick”, as some patients call him, has been living in Mantes since the end of the 1990s, at a time when the city had more than 10 doctors for 18,000 inhabitants. Originally from Mantville, involved in local politics (he changed his label several times, first PS, then DVD, via LRM), this former Olympic vice-champion in kayak in slim jeans can no longer support his conditions. of work. Neither did his wife, who joined him two years ago. “The pressure to refuse patients in distress every day is too strong, he confides. I have a patient base of over 2,500 people. If I take more, I won’t be able to do my job properly. This situation no longer corresponds to our ethics, we are not trained to refuse care to people. ”
“People don’t understand”
Doctor Gryb can hardly resist the pleas of the families. Demba, a 74-year-old pensioner, welcomes this. The poster plastered in the hall – “Due to the overload of work and to properly care for their patients, the doctors in this practice cannot take charge of any new patient” – did not discourage him. Nor the repeated refusals of the secretary. “I had been everywhere, everywhere, Doctor Gryb knew my brother, I came without an appointment, I caught her, I didn’t give her a choice: ‘I’m diabetic, you have to take me, c ‘has to ”, I told her, she took me. “ Catherine Gryb a “Cracked”. “I have a hard time saying no, she confides, that’s why I refuse to answer the phone, unlike Patrick, who is unable not to answer. “ Demba had been looking for a doctor for almost two years.
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