Haute-Marne: retired doctor Jean Thévenot discusses possible measures to fight against medical deserts

Aged 67 and after 36 years of practice in Chaumont (Haute-Marne), the doctor Jean Thévenot retired five years ago. The city faces a shortage of doctors. “We are a department with doctors who are also a little older than in the rest of France. We lost all the doctors relatively recently. We had warned the authorities a little bit about this risk and unfortunately, we have not yet found many solutions “, he says.

One of the possibilities mentioned to solve this problem in France would be to force young doctors to settle temporarily in medical deserts. “Here in reflection, either it would be one-off opportunities for a year to go and practice in a slightly disadvantaged region or, the other solution, it would really be much more limited places with a much more restrictive organization”, explains Jean Thévenot.