With the exception of timid rebounds in 2018 and 2020, the number of practitioners has been declining since 2010 and now seems to be on a plateau, foreshadowing a more significant increase from 2030.
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The order of doctors speaks of a “quiver” positive. In the 2024 edition of the Atlas of Medical Demography, published Wednesday October 2, the professional body announced that France had, in 2024, 1,672 doctors in regular activity (excluding replacements and active retirees) more than previous year. This represents an increase of 0.8% in the number of practitioners, which stood at 199,089 practitioners on January 1.
The subject of all attention due to difficulties in accessing care, this number has been declining since 2010, with the exception of timid rebounds in 2018 and 2020. It has now returned to a level comparable to that observed in 2014.
On a national scale, medical density increases very slightly: it goes from 294.7 to 296.4 doctors per 100,000 inhabitants. But “territorial inequalities are growing ever wider“, noted Doctor Jean-Marcel Mourgues, vice-president of the national council of the order of doctors, quoted by AFP. “The departments which have university hospitals, with rare exceptions, tend to increase and rejuvenate their medical population”while others, “rather on the outskirts of the region, often with a rural profile and an elderly population”, see their medical population “who continues to age and who does not get young enough”, he added.
According to the Atlas, the departments located around the Paris basin “are the least well endowed” : Indre thus has 145.9 doctors per 100,000 inhabitants, Eure 147.4 and Cher, 152.2. Conversely, the departments housing the large cities of France, as well as those located on the coast or at the borders, have the highest densities: Paris has 697.4 doctors per 100,000 inhabitants, Hautes-Alpes has 432. ,4 and the Rhône 414.
If Doctor Jean-Marcel Mourgues is delighted with a drop in the average age of professionals in regular employment, from 48 years and six months to 48 years and one month, he nevertheless notes that the needs for care are increasing with the age of the population. In terms of medical density per person over 65 – those who will most likely need care –the most degraded situations are found in Indre (514.8 doctors per 100,000 inhabitants over 65), Creuse (546.5) and Nièvre (568.4).
According to the vice-president of the national council of the order of doctors, the standardized medical density is found “on a platter” Who “should remain the brand of the decade 2020 to 2030”. “Afterwards, it is likely that from 2030”this value “will increase slowly at first, then more and more quickly”, while France today has 11,000 second-year medical students, and must reach 12,000 in 2025.
Medical demography has in fact suffered for several years from the effects of the numerus clausus, a policy of controlling the number of medical students that began in the 1970s and which reached its peak in the 1990s, with only 3,500 students trained each year. year. The quota was first loosened from the end of the 1990s, then abolished in 2020.