2023-09-14 17:46:49
“Fighting once morest a desert is not the right term to understand the situation. But, we certainly have a challenge of medical attractiveness in the department“. These are the introductory remarks made by Bertrand Biju-Duval, the departmental director of the Regional Health Agency (ARS) on the occasion of the Grand Rendez-Vous de la santé organized yesterday morning by the Departmental Council.
Although this competence does not fall within its scope, the Department is nevertheless committed to seeking solutions to counter this famous medical desertification. It is with this in mind that President Éliane Barreille requested, last May, a study from a specialized Lyon firm SPQR Conseil. A study to make a precise diagnosis, and above all to draw avenues for improvement for the implementation of a complementary, adapted and innovative medical offer in the Alpes-de-Haute-Provence.
The least we can say is that the picture painted before the various health stakeholders gathered for the occasion is hardly rosy. The most alarming figure is undoubtedly the 23,297 Lower Alps over 6 years old who do not have a GP, including 3,342 for seniors, and 2,138 for chronically ill people. The vulnerable public therefore struggles to access care, due to an insufficient medical supply: a third of the 164 doctors in the lower Alps are over 60 years old, and therefore soon to retire; there are currently only 37 general practitioners, and this number is not going to improve despite the end of the numerus clausus; finally, the distribution of practitioners is unequal across the territory.
The departmental health center option
Taking the example of Vaucluse and Saône-et-Loire, the Department is therefore leaning towards the creation of a departmental health center, noting in particular that salaried employment is a real element of attractiveness for doctors. “This is the scenario we started with, but nothing is set in stone because it is a project that health stakeholders must get involved with, specifies Éliane Barreille, who is banking on the opening of a first center in the last quarter of 2024, and additional branches a year later. The Department will therefore support this establishment with the support of the State, the ARS, the Primary Health Insurance Fund (CPAM), and the Region. Without competing with private medicine, the idea is to provide an additional range of care linked to existing services such as medical-social centers. The important thing is proximity“.
Proximity is really at the heart of this project which aims to cover as a priority the most deficit territories, by adding the deployment of a Médicobus, and a Dépistobus by the Region.
Not a miracle solution
Even if this health center is made up of three doctors, two advanced practice nurses, two medical secretaries, and ultimately state-certified nurses as well as midwives, it cannot be enough to respond to all the problems. As prefect Marc Chappuis says, health is a subject of drawers, and other avenues or experiments are also being studied: better housing future doctors by mobilizing in particular boarding schools where places are vacant, setting up a local advanced practice training, making medical practices more accessible, making the scholarship system more attractive, encouraging interns to come to the region, and above all keeping lower-Alpine students. “As soon as we can, we must be the VRP of our department“, concludes, not without malice, Bertrand Biju-Duval.
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