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Medical deserts: in the Creuse, a solidarity practice to treat residents
Faced with the lack of doctors in the Creuse, a solidarity medical practice has been set up in the small town of Ajain. Volunteer doctors come there every week, but none has yet wanted to settle down permanently. – (France 2)
Faced with the lack of doctors in the Creuse, a solidarity medical practice has been set up in the small town of Ajain. Volunteer doctors come there every week, but none has yet wanted to settle down permanently.
Between 2020 and 2022, no doctor was available to treat the 1,600 inhabitants of Ajain (Creuse). For a year and a half, every week, a different doctor has moved into the medical office that opened there. Claude Elias is among the patients and does not complain about these changes of doctor. “It’s not me who adapts, it’s the doctor who is obliged to adapt to me.” he explains.
No doctor willing to settle permanently
These volunteer doctors are paid 800 euros per week by an association, and come from all over France. “Luckily they come”, welcomes a mother, whose children were no longer able to be monitored by their former treating doctor, who had retired. There are few doctors left around Guéret (Creuse). The office is saturated with calls. If the system were to encourage a doctor to settle down permanently, none has yet offered. “Coming to work for a week, like that, from time to time (…), for young people, it’s okay, they help out. But coming to settle here for 30 years, with wife and children” is difficult, believes Gérard Van Melckebeke, volunteer doctor.
