Special Health Day on France Bleu Bourgogne, a theme that solicited many proposals on the Ma France 2022 platform. Among the most cited themes, there is the lack of doctors in the countryside. In Côte-d’Or, we know the problem well, even if the department does not lack doctors (3,114 according to the Council of the Order of Physicians). Meeting with two general practitioners from Côte d’Or who talk to us about this problem.
Lone country doctors
Between 2020 and 2021, the Côte-d’Or welcomed new doctors, which makes the department the most active in Bourgogne-Franche-Comté. It is in particular thanks to the Center Hospitalier Universitaire de Dijon which trains students. Romain Mindelaire, completed his studies in Côte-d’Or after having started them in Marseille. Internships that allowed him to discover new challenges: “it’s a good thing, I was able to discover the good sides of rural territories”.
However, he does not want to settle in a rural area. The main reason is isolation: “on the outskirts of a city, why not; but I would have to be able to return to Dijon every evening”, he explains. But there is also professional isolation: in rural areas, the lack of specialists results in heavier work for general practitioners.
The solution would be to create multidisciplinary health centers to facilitate patient monitoring: “often patients are sent directly to Dijon, whereas if there were more specialists, we could take better care of them”. We see more and more of them in Côte-d’Or, for example in Marsannay-le-Bois.
A bigger problem
Marie Chevaldonné moved to Saulon-la-Chapelle in 2018. As a general practitioner, she absolutely wanted to settle in a rural area, without being isolated: “I chose Saulon-la-Chapelle so that my husband could continue to work in Dijon, and because there were activities for my children”. Activities, but also a school, transport, so many services that would encourage doctors to settle… but not only. According to her, “it is not the doctor who will bring people to these rural areas, the whole system must follow behind”.
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