In medical deserts, forced requisitions harm doctors

AFP – Emmanuel DUNAND

In medical deserts, it's a bit dry… A doctor from the Loire experienced this when the police intervened in her office to force her to work extra shifts in the evening and on weekends. Due to a lack of volunteers, the Order of Physicians says it is obliged to do so, but it does not have unanimous support.

A medicine that is increasingly forced and dehumanized. “When you join the medical profession, you know that part of your job is to work shifts,” assures the president of the Order of Physicians of the Loire, Jean-François Janowiak. And he explains that “the legislator has provided that volunteering stops when there are no more volunteers.” So “if there are unfilled holes in the childcare schedule, we must then requisition.”

We've always done it like that. The problem, as reported by La Voix du Nord, is that the doctor concerned already takes care of 1,500 different patients. When the cup is full, it is full… As a result, shocked by the brutality of the “procedure” applied, she went on sick leave. 

In 2024, six doctors have already been forced to submit to this procedure. For the ARS, there is no other alternative, but for the requisitioned doctor, the method is often experienced as an unjustifiable constraint. If the objective is to guarantee access to care in under-resourced areas, it seems that this solution is neither satisfactory nor sustainable. The deputy mayor of Bully, in the Loire, deplores the impact that this practice could have on the attractiveness of medicine in rural areas, warning that such methods risk dissuading young practitioners from setting up.

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