TRUE OR FALSE. Are 95% of French territories covered by at least one private doctor on call, evenings and weekends?

During his general policy speech, Gabriel Attal said he was “ready” to restore the obligation of on-call duty for liberal doctors. For the president of the MG France union it is not necessary “95% of the territory is covered” by “permanent care” in the evenings and weekends. That’s true, but not if you look at the whole night.

Faced with the lack of doctors in places, the Prime Minister brandished the threat of compulsory on-call duty. During his general policy speech, Gabriel Attal said he “ready to go further, by restoring on-call obligations for self-employed doctors, in the evenings or on weekends, in their offices, in hospitals or in nursing homes”. For the president of the general practitioners’ union MG France, Agnès Giannotti, this is not necessary: ​​for “the permanence of evening and weekend care, which must obviously be provided collectively, 95% of the territory is covered so there is no difficulty”, she assured Wednesday January 31 on franceinfo. True or false ?

A difference between evening and night

It’s true but the president of MG France is incomplete, she only speaks in the evenings, until midnight, on weekends and public holidays. In these cases, in fact, 95% of French territories are covered by at least one on-call doctor, according to the results of the survey by the National Order of Physicians, for the year 2022. This means that Outside of medical office opening hours, ongoing care is provided. If you encounter a health problem, you can call 15, or directly the on-call office, and be taken care of by a private doctor, or go to the office or open medical center, the doctor can also come to ‘to you.

Some 38 departments considered white zones

On the other hand, for the rest of the night, from midnight to 8 a.m., continuous care is only ensured in 24% of French territories, again according to the survey by the National Order of Physicians. In almost all French departments, there are white zones in the middle of the night. The firefighters and SAMU must therefore handle all calls. Some 38 departments are even entirely considered white zones. Between midnight and 8 a.m., no sector of the department is covered by an on-call doctor. Aveyron, Dordogne, Orne or Pas-de-Calais are for example on the list.

To explain this low coverage in the middle of the night, the authors of the survey put forward two arguments: the low activity at these times and in these sectors and the difficulty in mobilizing volunteer private doctors in these slots. Regional health agencies may decide that the number of procedures carried out in the middle of the night is too low to mobilize a doctor on call, so in some places they have chosen to eliminate the night shifts of private doctors.

Difficulty mobilizing volunteer doctors

It is difficult to mobilize enough doctors on call because in places there are not enough doctors at all, in medical deserts. Furthermore, general practitioners say they are exhausted by the pace of work in the office; they cannot continue with night shifts. Others consider that the guards are not paid enough, they are paid 180 euros per 12 hours. Today, 38% of private doctors participate in on-call care, providing an average of 29 calls per year.

On-call duty has no longer been compulsory in France since 2002, after a long strike by private doctors. Since then, the subject has regularly come up on the table, to compensate for the lack of doctors, ensure continuity of care and relieve congestion in emergencies. On May 19, 2023, the law for “improving access to care” thus introduced “a principle of collective responsibility of health professionals for permanent care, both in health establishments and in the city”.