Against medical deserts, a new center of solidarity doctors in the countryside

A new step in access to care in rural areas: with the opening of a seventh health center in Indre, the Médecins Solidaires collective is accelerating its movement to combat medical deserts, to the great "relief" of the populations concerned.

It is in Reuilly, a small village in Berry located 30 kilometers from Bourges, that this new center was established at the beginning of December. In seven years, its last two doctors have left the town, retired, leaving the 2,000 inhabitants without the possibility of receiving treatment.

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So since the opening, at reception, the excitement has not died down and the phone rings non-stop, giving the two coordinators the difficult task of finding slots in a full schedule for more than a month.

“People are extremely relieved to finally be heard, listened to, taken care of and have follow-up,” summarizes Lucie Vannier, indicating that more than 300 appointments had already been honored in less than a month.

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This brand new center is a new step for the Médecins Solidaires collective, launched in 2022 by Dr Martial Jardel, who had already opened six health centers in central/central-west France, including four last year.

– “All affected” –

"If we cannot ask much of a single doctor, we can ask a little of many," he repeated to regional elected officials at the beginning of January.

Every week, a so-called "solidarity" doctor, whose main activity is often based several hundred kilometers away, comes to give his time to allow the health center to function.

That week, in Reuilly, it was Dr Clémentine Labouré, a professional from SOS Médecins in Paris, who received the patients.

"Like the traditional doctors in the collective, we each take turns practicing," she explains to AFP. "As doctors, we are all affected by the fact that patients do not have access to care."

According to Dr. Labouré, "in areas where people no longer had access to a doctor at all," "we have patients who abandon their care, who abandon their follow-up, who had chronic treatments, who no longer take them, who no longer get screened."

This initiative allows us to “put them back into the healthcare system,” she adds.

All the patients we met described their "relief" and "joy" at finding the possibility of getting treatment again, but also someone to talk to. 27.5% of them even chose the center as "their treating physician."

– “Dynamic” –

For Danielle Chene, who came to see us for flu symptoms, "it was about time, because we have nothing anyway." "Even if we go further, there are doctors who won't take us," complains the retiree.

Here, the essentials are assured, "I can renew my prescriptions, do my tests. That's all we needed."

The particularity of a doctor who changes every week is that "there are so many different points of view to examine certain pathologies," assures Liliane Barbier, who came to renew her mother's prescription, aged 94.

This creation of a medical center has even pleased the town hall.

"Until now, our residents, most of whom are aging, were without doctors and without means of transport at their disposal, people found themselves without care," points out Carole Baptista, the town's mayor.

While the association takes care of the professional's accommodation and manages the administrative aspect, the municipality provides the premises, which it has "renovated", and finances its operating costs.

Expenses that are largely amortized, because with doctors, "it's a dynamic at the level of our community" that is created, "it keeps our pharmacy alive and by ricochet our artisans, the baker... I am a delighted mayor."

In the Centre-Val de Loire, an area with the lowest density of practitioners, an agreement was even signed in July 2024 with the regional council, the prefecture and the ARS. The objective: to ensure the opening of five new health centers in the region.

With 550 doctors as members of the collective, the professionals are aiming even higher, and are counting on 20 active centers by 2027, throughout the country.

"If 10% doctors came for a week, we could open 150 centers in France," says Dr. Labouré.