Normandy aims to attract rural doctors

A medical centre in the heart of the Pays d’Auge could provide the blueprint for a nationwide network, under new plans by President Sarkozy to improve rural access to healthcare.
Orbec, population 2,500, is the first centre of its kind in Basse-Normandie, which launched as part of a pilot scheme to tackle the problem of “medical deserts” – areas where there is a severe shortage of GPs.
The €1.5m facility, in a former nursery school, is shared by five practising doctors with different specialisms, including a dietician and physiotherapist. This allows them to share running costs and expertise, instead of setting up practice on their own.
During a visit to the Orbec health centre, Mr Sarkozy said he would look at offering better financial incentives to GPs who chose to move to an area that was currently under-served.
The state is also offering to contribute up to 35 per cent towards the cost of building new maisons de la santé between now and 2012, similar to the Orbec centre, because “the new generation of doctors do not want to practise on their own”, Sarkozy said.
The announcements come as new research by a French doctors’ body found Normandy continues to be one of the worst regions in France for finding a doctor, because GPs were attracted more to urban areas and the south.
The Conseil National de l’Ordre des Médecins found there were 248 doctors for every 100,000 residents in Haute-Normandie and 263 in Basse-Normandie. This is some way short of the national average of 309 and the best-served region, Paca, where there are 374.
The problem risks becoming worse in the coming years. The group’s research found that almost 70 per cent of GPs in rural areas were over 50 and nearing retirement. They are often not replaced, because newly qualified doctors tend to prefer jobs in hospitals (with fixed working hours, better holidays and less time spent on-call) over setting up as independent GP.
One of the doctors at the new facility, Anni Pithon, said: “This new structure works well and the patients are the big winners.”
He said local residents, especially the elderly, appreciated the centre, because it meant they no longer had to travel to Lisieux, some 20km away, for healthcare.