“We know there is an emergency. » Frédéric Valletu (Horizons), long awaited for this position, was appointed Minister Delegate for Health and Prevention on February 8, 2024. Mayor of Fontainebleau for seventeen years, president of the French Hospital Federation for nine years, he made health his strong point. Today he considers medical deserts, which affect 85% of France, to be “topic number one”.
He himself is elected to one of the driest. With a density of 89 general practitioners per 100,000 inhabitants in 2023, up from 114 in 2012, Seine-et-Marne is 100th out of 101 French departments for the concentration of general practitioners and 96th for the number of caregivers. “This phenomenon has been going on for many years and is getting worse due to the expansion of the age pyramid. This is urgent, but it will take ten years to train a GP. Not to mention those who leave the profession,” the minister is alarmed.
In mid-December 2023, the law bearing his name, proposed by Deputy Valletou, was adopted by the National Assembly and Senate. It is based on continuity of care, reconciling the work and retirement of physicians, and financially encourages medical students to practice in unpopulated areas.
“Mayors fight every day”
Three months later, Minister Vallethu is pursuing a course of moderation and optimism. He does not promise major reforms, but draws from his practical experience as weapons that he intends to mobilize to try to compensate for the shortcomings.
To provide a political answer, he talks about his experiences as a local elected official. “Mayors struggle every day to find solutions. Seine et Marne is a perfect example of this. In Fontainebleau, we have created a multidisciplinary university health center (MSPU). The system linked to the faculty of the University of Créteil aimed to admit young medical students to Upec by offering them an attractive structure. It was duplicated in Culomiers and Nemours,” explains the minister.
“Free doctors from administrative tasks”
First local response. However, one reality is evident in all these structures: the difficulty of finding doctors who will live there. “We are moving in the right direction. Revision number sentence allows us to admit 20% more students in the first year of study. However, this solution cannot produce immediate results due to the length of medical research,” insists Frédéric Valletou.
He is strongly opposed to sending young GPs to stressed areas, which he considers counterproductive: “The aim is not to scare off young graduates. ” To make the profession more attractive, he suggests improving the skills of some professions: “The goal is to free doctors from administrative tasks, which currently occupy 20% of their time. The Prime Minister has announced the creation of more than 10,000 paramedic positions by the end of 2024. Now their number is 6,000.” waiting rooms.
Source: Le Parisien
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