Today’s challenge to improve access to care “is to make the profession of family doctor attractive”, defends the president of the General Practitioners branch of the Confederation of French Medical Unions.
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“No matter how much you increase the number of doctors, if they do not become attending physicians, the situation will continue to get worse,” reacts Sunday April 7 on franceinfo Luc Duquesnel, president of the Generalists branch of the Confederation of French Medical Unions (Généralistes-CSMF), to the announcement by Gabriel Attal of a significant increase in the number of places in medicine, of 10,000 places open in 2023 to 16,000 places in 2027.
“We are fighting to make the profession of attending physician, of family doctor, attractiveexplains the general practitioner in Mayenne. This is what will gradually improve access to care.”
He is not convinced by the announcement of a “rabbit tax” 5 euros per appointment not honored. Every year, 25 to 30 million appointments are not kept. But Luc Duquesnel prefers “educate people rather than telling professionals ‘you are going to tax people’, which will strain relations with our patients”. “Me, if a patient has a habit of not honoring his appointments, I exclude him from my patient base”, he explains. According to him, one of the main problems is that “often these are patients who come from CMU (universal health coverage) and who do not pay their doctor, so we will have to know how to recover this money”, he points.
