More and more Occitans have to travel hundreds of kilometers to get a medical examination. A situation they find very difficult to accept.
“250 km for a toothache…” Benoît lives in Corrèze and to get an appointment with the dentist, he has to travel kilometers to Toulouse. “Not a single doctor was accepting new patients in the department,” he regrets. There the problem of medical deserts it is not new… In certain areas of the Occitanie region, it has become very difficult, if not impossible, to seek treatment. So much so that some people have no choice but to travel hundreds of kilometers to have a medical examination.
“The health center referred us to the emergency room because of bronchitis”
This is the case of Anne*, 48 years old, who has been living in Auch in Gers for nine months with her family. When she arrived from the Lyon region, she did not expect to find herself in this situation. The family has not been able to receive a single medical examination for nine months. “All the doctors are retiring and no longer accepting new patients,” she explains, “When my 16-year-old son got sick, the medical center referred us to the emergency room for bronchitis.” This mother is completely incomprehensible. “I had to go 1 hour to Pibrac (Haute-Garonne) to make an appointment with the dentist,” she adds. Stunned by this situation, she contacted ARS, which, to her great surprise, “redirected her to the Travelers service”.
The same observation for Sabrina, a resident of Garrevaques in Tarn: “No doctor is accepting new patients in the town of Revel”. His family must decide to travel 100 km back “to the center of Toulouse” to have a medical examination. “It’s an aberration,” she laments. Even worse in Montbeton in Tarn-et-Garonne, where the village has not had a doctor for six years, Sonia also had to go to Toulouse to consult a dermatologist, “even in Montauban c “It was almost impossible to get a consultation.”
“3 hour drive to the dentist’s appointment”
The Occitanie region has been hit hard by medical desertification, with some patients traveling incredible distances. This is the case of Arnaud, a resident of Maxou in Lot. In this small village of a few hundred souls, “it is impossible to get an appointment with a dentist after the previous one retires”. For the meeting, the man told us he had to go to Quint-Fonsegrives (Haute Garonne) “a 3 hour drive and more than 250 km round trip”. Like many, he condemns the cost of this transport and condemns “a shame for a country like France”.
Another Arnaud, in Albi in Tarn, encounters the same problems: “We were looking for an ENT for our one-year-old daughter. There are no options in Albi… We had to go to Castres for several months before we finally found Albi. But it was short-lived luck for this Tarnais, “the doctor found in our town has retired and to continue the follow-up, now we have to go to Toulouse”. Complicated situation for life with the baby for this young dad: “There is a feeling that he cannot do the best for his baby “, he laments before denouncing the grotesque situation: “Having to drive almost an hour for a consultation for a one-year-old baby, that’s hard to understand… Especially when you live in a city that’s a prefecture.”
*The first name has been changed