2023-12-30 16:36:30
Health Insurance accuses this doctor of excessive work, non-compliant prescriptions and unjustified increases.
As of this Sunday, December 31 at midnight, Dr. Patrick Gautheron, general practitioner in Fourchambault, in Nièvre, is banned from practicing his profession for one year, due to various failings. But in this medical desert, the absence of the 62-year-old doctor worries his 4,500 patients.
It was following an inspection of his activity, where anomalies were noted, that Health Insurance filed a complaint against him. She criticizes him for an excessive pace of work, non-compliant orders and unjustified increases.
68,000 euros overpayment
And for good reason, Dr Patrick Gautheron, who has been working in this office for around fifteen years, sees between 80 and 120 patients per day, from 7 a.m. to 9 p.m. almost without interruption. In total, the doctor follows 4,500 patients, four times more than the average general practitioner. Interviewed by BFMTV, Patrick Gautheron explains that many colleagues have left the region and that the population must be taken care of.
But Health Insurance also points to weekend and night overbilling, representing an overpayment of 68,000 euros. According to the doctor, it is a “bad setting of his payment terminal”, affirming that he has already started to reimburse this amount to the CPAM.
Finally, the doctor allegedly issued non-compliant prescriptions, and sometimes even contraindicated medications. “In 39 prescriptions, the doctor also issued medications that did not meet the patients’ age or weight criteria. And for two prescriptions, he prescribed medications that were contraindicated due to his patients’ pregnancy,” explains the report, consulted by our colleagues from the Journal du Center.
“I assume certain involuntary irregularities,” explained Dr Gautheron to BFMTV.
Nièvre, medical desert
But 24 hours after his suspension, no replacement solution has been found for his patients. “I’m going to take the time I’ve ever taken for fifteen years and then, things will go well for me, that’s not the problem. The problem is the population,” added the doctor.
A situation that worries his patients: “How am I going to do it? I don’t know. There are doctors, but they are full. We are short of doctors,” one of them told BFMTV.
“If the doctor leaves, what do we do? We’re not going to go to the emergency room for a little chickenpox. It’s not possible,” another of his patients told BFMTV.
According to INSEE, the Nièvre department is in 82nd place out of 96 in the ranking of the number of health professionals per inhabitant.
“In the department where Doctor Gautheron practices, there are probably around 25% of patients who no longer have a treating doctor before he ceases to work,” said DR Thierry Lemoine, president of the Departmental Council of Physicians of the Nièvre.
More than 300 people gathered this Saturday, December 30, in the afternoon, in front of Dr. Gautheron’s office to support him. “The reason for this mobilization is the incomprehension of the sanction (…) For a year, we no longer have a doctor,” regretted the organizer of the rally to BFMTV.
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