Medical deserts: a bill to authorize certain professions to prescribe

in collaboration with

Dr Yvon Le Flohic, general practitioner

Will pharmacists, physical therapists and advanced practice nurses soon be the “medical desert doctors“? This is in any case the meaning of the proposal by Stéphanie Rist, rapporteur for the Social Security budget, and her bill to fight against these geographical “medical voids”, which are sorely lacking in practitioners.

Call the paramedics

For the member of the majority movement, Renaissance, certain paramedical health professionals, such as nurses and physiotherapists, must be authorized to prescribe drugs. “For first prescriptions, it is just starting in experimentation, we want to generalize it“, she indicates.

As a reminder, nurses in advanced practice are health professionals whose status was created by the Touraine law of 2016 and a decree of 2018. It is a status that corresponds to a bac+5 level, with a better salary and more autonomy, but always under the supervision of a doctor.

Treat “benign” illnesses

For the MP, advanced practice nurses could therefore be “practitioners who will be able to see benign illnesses in place of the doctor but in coordination with him” and prescribe them “when it is within their competence, even before the patient can see the doctor”. Patrick Chamboredon, the president of the National Order of Nurses, immediately “welcomed the initiative“to contribute to”promote the attractiveness and recognition of the nursing profession“.

The Council of the Order signs an agreement

In parallel with this announcement by the elected representative of Loiret, the Order of Physicians signed an agreement a few days earlier with several health orders, 7 in total, to delegate certain medical care. “Total disrespect for the profession” according to Dr Yvon Le Flohic, general practitioner member of the committee of experts of Doctissimo, who shows that “thehe Council of the Order is completely disconnected from the reality on the ground”.

“This is not the right solution”

For Dr Yvon Le Flohic, the solution is not there. “Without wanting to throw stones at the paramedical professionals, we must look at the training of each one. Are they sufficiently trained to have sufficient knowledge in pharmacology? Moreover, very often, benign illnesses do not need to be seen by the attending physician and if this is the case, it is sometimes an opportunity for us to put our finger on something else, in the patient. . This will not be the case, if this type of consultation is set up“abounds the doctor.

“In addition, what people living in medical deserts need are trained specialists, rather, there are many pathologies that require specialized care” adds the doctor. A statement shared by the MG France union, which issued a press release stating that the government, “rather than working on what might facilitate this access, [le gouvernement] claims to teach the population how to do without it”.

So what to do? For Dr Le Flohic, the only solution is to offer doctors based in metropolitan France “to carry out 48-hour call duty in the medical deserts neighboring their homes, all expenses paid and in quality infrastructures, with the appropriate computer equipment”. For the doctor, this is the only reliable solution. Not sure the government agrees…

Remember that in France, seven million people currently do not have a declared attending physician.