As previously Mérindol, Cheval Blanc or Mornas for example, Lapalud has hung its banners “looking for doctors” at the entrances to the village. The municipality will have tried everything for almost a year to anticipate the retirements of two of its three doctors, in June and then last December: ” We sent a letter to the forty-one faculties of medicine and embassies of Eastern countries, says Mayor Hervé Flaugère, then we had a meeting with the director of the ARS who came to the town hall, knowing that we are making available to future doctors _a brand new room with a free provision_. We also put them all medical equipment available since the former doctor retired since mid-December gave us this famous equipment and the Region gives us computer equipment so that they can put themselves in this cabinet.
I know that there are certain municipalities which offer accommodation and which even give a financial envelope for some. We cannot afford it – Hervé Flaugère, mayor of Lapalud.
No follow-up given by two doctors who came on site
The only two doctors we have received, already there is one who answered us more and the other sent us an email to tell us that he was not interested without further arguments. I know that there are certain municipalities which offer accommodation and which even give a financial envelope for some. That’s it, but we have finances that are not expandable so we can’t afford. The two doctors who retired last year anticipated their prescriptions by 6 to 9 months, but the first renewal dates are coming, we explain at the Grande Pharmacie de Lapalud. The last doctor in activity resists and devotes himself because he continues despite his 70 years.
No more doctors in the surrounding towns are taking new patients.
1800 is the estimated number of Lapaluciens and Lapaluciennes without referring doctors by the municipality, roughly speaking the patient base of the two retired GPs. Hunting is open to general practitioners in even remote municipalities and it is hardly fruitful. The Intercommunal Medical Center of Bollène opened in 2018 with six general practitioners in particular being full, even refusal from the Health Centers of Pierrelatte and Pont-Saint-Esprit explain the idle inhabitants.
The average age of general practitioners working in Vaucluse continues to rise, many are between 60 and 65 years old. They are just over 500 today including a hundred in the home stretch of retirement within two or three years for 563,000 inhabitants.
In France, it is now estimated that between 8 and 9 million French people do not have referring doctors throughout the country. If the government has normally since last year removed the numerus clausus, it has still not increased capacity in universities.
– J. M. Le Ray
– Visactu