“In order for my mother to have an appointment with a general practitioner, I have to lie. » Joëlle Besnard, who lives in Mayenne (Mayenne), makes an appointment in her own name. Since June, she has been looking for a new attending physician for her mother, able to follow up on the nonagenarian, who recently had heart surgery: “She doesn’t know that I have to lie to get her a date, it’s already scary enough for her at 90. »
A Senate report, published in March, shows that 11% of French people aged 17 and over do not have a general practitioner in 2022. This is 1 point more than in 2020. The drop in the density of general practitioners accelerated between 2017 and 2021, according to indicators calculated by health geographer Emmanuel Vigneron. Over this period, the number of general practitioners per department, relative to the population, decreased by 1% per year. A slow but relentless deterioration.
1er September, less than 30 kilometers from Mayenne, in the town of Evron, videos shot by France Bleu showed a queue of 120 people in front of the health center. They had gone there at 9:30 a.m. – while registration only opened at 2 p.m. – in the hope of integrating the new doctor’s patient population, whose arrival had been announced by a discreet poster.
North-South disparities
“The situation has been deteriorating for twenty years. Since 1er July, the territory of Evron is officially the weakest territory of the department, in terms of medical demography. It has 47 general practitioners per 100,000 inhabitants”, says Luc Duquesnel, president of general practitioners, within the Confederation of French medical unions (CSMF), and doctor in Mayenne. A figure well below the national average, which stands at 339 general practitioners per 100,000 inhabitants, on 1er January 2021.
In Mayenne, the National Health Insurance Fund explains that 10.2% of the population has no attending physician. This is a figure no higher than elsewhere, and lower than that of departments such as Charente (13.3%). “It’s because here all the general practitioners take a lot of patients: between 1,500 and 3,000, against a national average of 900 patients for a general practitioner”believes Mr. Duquesnel.
“The Prospect of a Dark Decade in Medical Demography Is a Reality,” Notes Latest Senate Briefing Report
With Mayenne, around twenty departments have experienced a drop in medical density ranging from – 3% to – 2% between 2017 and 2021, according to calculations by Emmanuel Vigneron. And the latest Senate briefing is not optimistic: “Considering the age pyramid of doctors and the restriction on the number of students due to the numerus clausus, if nothing is done, the worst is ahead of us. The prospect of a black decade in terms of medical demography is a reality. » Mr. Vigneron’s work, based on public data, also reveals rural and hyper-rural territories on the front line, such as in Orne or Charente. Moreover, the contrast between a better-off South and a North and a center of France that are under-endowed with general practitioners has increased.
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