A professional surgeon, the mayor of Tresques, departmental councilor and president of Sdis Alexandre Pissas continues to provide treatment in a context marked by a reduction in the provision of care due to the problem of medical deserts which also impacts the territory of Rhone Gard.
He decided to speak out. And for once, Alexandre Pissas does not speak to talk about politics or firefighters. The president of Sdis and also mayor of Tresques and general councilor invites himself into the field of public health and more particularly that of medical deserts, a phenomenon which impacts his elective lands and which he describes with force and anecdotes. At 73, the elected official who made a career in medicine clearly does not intend to leave his blue uniform and stethoscope any time soon.
Associate professor
Today, the man who was also an associate professor at the Montpellier medical faculty is a practitioner attached to the Bagnols-sur-Cèze hospital center. He also works at the Pont-Saint-Esprit hospital which welcomes his patients, particularly those with lymphatic pathology. In 2016, Alexandre Pissas left the position of head of department which he had held since 1982 in Bagnols-sur-Cèze where he now provides only one consultation per week.
Burial certificate
A surgeon by trade, Doctor Pissas remembers a weekend when he was called by a friend. “This friend’s brother died on a Sunday he says. The family could not find a general practitioner to issue the burial certificate. I was called. I went with my stamp I did it.” If he still works it is in a minimalist way.
Small operations
Why doesn’t he stop? “I keep going because everyone is calling me.” There are those who no longer have attending doctors. I’m trying to find them a colleague. Others tell me I have a neurology appointment in six months, can’t you give me that? It’s getting more and more difficult. I still sometimes write prescriptions for people who have toothache. he declares. “I continue to have a small activity. I prescribe doliprane and antibiotics. I use oil to make people feel better” he explains. “I continue to operate on small hernias. I also perform circumcisions.” On Tuesday morning, October 31, 2023, Alexandre Pissas operated on a hand tumor.
“If there is a complication”
On the other hand, no more major interventions such as esophageal cancer, colon cancer or pancreatic cancer. This is obviously not a lack of competence. In fact, other occupations and in particular the political commitments of the mayor of Tresques do not authorize him to do more. “I go to Nîmes three times a week” he explains. It is therefore not easy to multiply the back and forths. If there is a complication and Doctor Pissas is in Nîmes, it is not certain that he will be at a patient’s bedside in time to see if a Redon drain needs to be mobilized or a gastric tube inserted. .
Closed number
Alexandre Pissas is married to a pharmacist. They are the parents of a son who is a general practitioner, a daughter who is a surgeon and another son who is a pharmacist. The former associate professor at the Faculty of Medicine of Montpellier believes that “the care offer disappears because the numerus clausus was very poorly managed”. In 1976, he was an intern in Grenoble. He remembers a prediction from the dean of the medical school at the time: “He told me Pissas, with the numerus clausus, we will reduce the number of students admitted to medicine by 20%. At the time we thought that the fewer doctors there were, the less they would prescribe and the less Social Security would be in deficit. This was obviously false reasoning.”. Alexandre Pissas is convinced of this: “The current government, like the previous ones, has its back to the wall.” To solve the shortage of medical supplies, he is obliged to bring in foreign doctors.
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