Loir-et-Cher), October 18, 2024.” sizes=”(min-width: 1024px) 556px, 100vw” width=”664″ height=”443″/> Doctor Michel Daunay, in one of the offices left vacant at the Châtres-sur-Cher medical center (Loir-et-Cher), October 18, 2024. FP
A new doctor could soon settle in Châtres-sur-Cher (Loir-et-Cher). A “new” not so new, in fact. Ten years after asserting his retirement rights, Michel Daunay would like to reopen his office in this village of 1,100 inhabitants, in order to “do a service”he said. In June and September, her two general practitioner colleagues who until then had occupied the town’s health center left in quick succession, one to join the Romorantin-Lanthenay hospital, the other to become an employed doctor at a neighboring locality. At 76 years old, Doctor Daunay hardly hesitated when the community of communes of Romorantinais and Monestois offered him to take back his stethoscope, in return for monthly remuneration. “People no longer have a doctor, they are in trouble”he justifies.
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Prior to the proposal of the Prime Minister, Michel Barnier, to call on retired doctors in order to fight against medical deserts, his initiative came at the right time, even if it was not well received, initially, by the departmental council of the order of doctors. He had rejected his project on the pretext that Michel Daunay had not followed continuing training over the last three years, as required by the rule. The body should soon render a new decision after consultation with the higher level, the national council of the order. In the event of a positive opinion, the former practitioner should be able to regain his activity in exchange for a simple “recommendation for personal upgrading of medical knowledge”.
“You can’t lose your medicine overnight”pleads the ghost, Sologne banter and easy informality, archetype of the country doctor devoted body and soul to his patients. Up at 6 a.m., in bed at midnight during his thirty-eight years of work, the man does not remember having taken a vacation, or very little. “I gave a lot”he admits. The most unique intervention of his career? The day when, when he went off to help a farmer whose leg had been caught by an agricultural machine, he had to amputate the poor man on the spot using… the farm’s meat saw, a tool designed to cut up the pig . “The guy is still alive, I saw him again the other day”welcomes the trained emergency physician.
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“I already know I will be overwhelmed”
Unsurprisingly, Michel Daunay is saddened by the crisis of liberal practice in rural areas: “Young doctors are either bounty hunters who settle where they are offered help, or civil servants who want to start at 9 a.m. and finish at 6 p.m. » He would only work two days a week, with twenty-five meetings per day. “But I know I will be overwhelmed, anticipate theas the demand is great. »
