There is an emergency. With general practitioners retiring one after the other, the upcoming opening of a mutual health centre in Royan will do some good. An agreement was signed in early September between the City and the Mutualité française Centre Atlantique for the provision of the upper floor of a building located at the level of the former Jules-Ferry school in early October 2024, offering six offices on 250 m², the same as the ground floor, dedicated to private practice. “Be careful, this does not mean that it will open at that time. It will take some time, I think, for the doctors to settle in,” specifies the deputy mayor of Royan in charge of health Éliane Ciraud-Lanoue.
The municipality has undertaken to make the premises available “with the possibility of termination by either party after six years with six months’ notice”. The Mutualité will not have to pay rent to the City for the first three years to launch the activity.
On the ground floor there will be specialist doctors or paramedical professions, all of them independent. Nurses and a psychologist have already taken over part of the six offices available. The rental contracts here will be made directly between the City, owner of the walls, and the professionals. “We are talking about a real health center with general practitioners on the first floor paid by the Mutualité française Centre Atlantique and other professions on the ground floor.”
Not an emergency center
Director of the “medical care” sector of the Mutualité française Centre-Atlantique, Anne Léonard detailed, Thursday, September 12, during the start of the Pensa program, the future organization of the mutual health center, “a local center for general medicine, and only general medicine,” Anne Léonard specifies. “The doctors who will work there will be employees of the Mutualité française and will concentrate on practicing their art. They will not have to worry about the administrative dimension.”
This mutualist center will be a local center for general medicine, and only general medicine.
This mutualist center will not be intended to replace the emergency departments of the public hospital center or the emergency general medicine consultations provided by Allô Garde. “The center’s doctors will monitor patients with chronic illnesses or provide traditional general medicine consultations. They will see patients who no longer have a primary care physician. They may also become the primary care physician for people who come to register at the center.” Anne Léonard announced some good news. On Thursday, September 12, the health assistant Éliane Ciraud-Lanoue nevertheless took the useful precaution of inviting her audience to be reasonable. “If you already have a primary care physician, please do not register at the mutualist center…”
First to two doctors
First, Anne Léonard mentioned, at the opening of the mutualist center, the installation of two practitioners, assisted by a secretary. “Secondly, our objective is obviously to install other general practitioners. Recruiting, I’m not going to hide it, is complicated but general practitioners want to work in a team, to have established schedules, to have time for themselves.”
Being relieved of the administrative tasks related to a consultation is an argument when it comes to recruitment. To complement the general medicine activity, the Mutualité française also plans, Anne Léonard has already announced, “to integrate advanced practice nurses into the center, whose job is specifically to monitor patients with chronic diseases.”
The Valérie André general practitioner health center will be operational in a few weeks.
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For the patient, the “mutualist” nature of this center has the advantage of avoiding them having to pay excess fees, which are allowed for private practitioners, and even of not having to advance the third-party payment. “Which is not insignificant for some people, even in Royan,” Anne Léonard is quick to point out.
While the inauguration of the health center, named after the general physician Valérie André, is already scheduled for October 15, the mutual center, upstairs, will not open until November 12. “We will open registrations the week before, initially by telephone only.” The possibility of making an appointment online will not be activated immediately, so as not to saturate a center to which many patients who are sometimes looking for a doctor for a long time are likely to rush.
