Difficult to find a general practitioner who accepts new patients, or to get a quick appointment with a dentist, in Joué-lès-Tours. If the municipality, the second most populous in Indre-et-Loire, is still far from being a medical desert, it is nevertheless located in the low average of municipalities in the Metropolis.
The Department of Research, Studies, Evaluation and Statistics (Drees), a national statistical administration, has created an indicator, Localized Potential Accessibility (APL), in order to quantify access to care in territories. The APL is measured, for general practitioners, in the number of potential consultations per inhabitant per year. For other health professionals, the unit is the number of full-time equivalents (FTE) accessible per 100,000 inhabitants.
Unevenly distributed pharmacies
Thus, in Joué-lès-Tours, the figures are all lower than the average for the Metropolis and they are mostly lower than the municipalities in the inner ring, with the exception of Saint-Pierre-des-Corps.
Thus, a Joconde patient can hope to have access to 4.2 consultations per year with a general practitioner, compared to 4.8 for the metropolitan average. In comparison, patients in Tours have access to 5 consultations per year, those in La Riche 5.7 per year, and those in Chambray-lès-Tours 6.7 per year. In Joué-lès-Tours, this figure even drops to 3.9 if we only take into account doctors who are under 65 years old.
Same observation regarding access to other health professionals. Thus, there are 82.4 FTE nurses per 100,000 standardized inhabitants in Joué-lès-Tours, compared to 94.3 for the Metropolis. There are 88 for Ballan-Miré, 98.7 for Tours, 115 for La Riche, or even 130.9 for Chambray-lès-Tours.
Joué-lès-Tours is even below the departmental average (86.1) for nurses, as well as for dental surgeons (49.2 for Joué-lès-Tours, compared to 51.5 for ‘Indre-et-Loire and 69.8 for Tours Métropole). And the figures are still below the metropolitan average for access to midwives (24.9 versus 26.8) and physiotherapists (98.7 versus 132.8).
As for pharmacies, Joué-lès-Tours has 10 for 38,000 inhabitants, or 0.26 per 1,000 inhabitants (or approximately 1 per 3,850 inhabitants). This is below the national average, which stands at 0.32 per 1,000 inhabitants (or 1 per 3,125 inhabitants). Relatively low figures, but not alarming.
On the other hand, access to these pharmacies is much more unequal. The city’s pharmacies are distributed along Boulevard Jean-Jaurès, in the city center and in the Rabière district, in the most densely populated areas. But residents around Lake Bretonnières, the Morier district, or even the south of the town, such as the suburban areas beyond the ring road, are located more than 500 m from the nearest pharmacy.
