It really is urgent! ‘Que Choisir’ calls on the public authorities for rapid “shock therapy” to improve access to healthcare for the French.
There is a shortage of doctors
Finding a niche to get an appointment, for example with a dermatologist, a dentist or a gastroenterologist, can take more than…3 months – or even more – (not to mention specialists no longer ‘taking new patients’) . Faced with these abnormal situations for a country like France, the consumer association UFC-Que Choisir is calling on the public authorities for ‘shock therapy’ to improve access to healthcare for the French.
Getting treatment in France is getting complicated!
The association asks the public authorities to tackle the ‘dogma of total freedom of installation’ liberal doctors. In its note, UFC-Que Choisir writes: “More than ever, regulation of the installation of doctors by the public authorities “is an emergency in France. Because there is a shortage of doctors, the supply must be rationalized by prioritizing the most under-resourced areas. The supply of liberal medicine, already sluggish, will deteriorate by 2030, the density of liberal doctors will drop by 5“.
The supply of liberal medicine, already sluggish, will deteriorate by 2030
With this degradation of the liberal medical offer, hospital emergencies will see an influx of patients who no longer know where to turn. Our colleagues add that “a 1% decrease in the density of liberal doctors in a department increases the activity of its emergencies by up to 0.6% in the short term, and up to 0.9% in the long term. ”.
A health divide
For the consumer association, a ‘territorial commitment contract *’ is needed, but the latter was rejected by the doctors during negotiations with the National Fund forassurance disease.
* The territorial commitment contract asks doctors to commit to three subjects: “increasing the medical offer (size and evolution of the patient population), financial access to care” (compliance with sector 1 tariffs or sector 2), and “the response to the care needs of the territory (participation in the permanence of care, unscheduled care, coordinated exercise)”.