Medical Deserts: The Imbroglio Over Doctor Regulation Continues in the Senate

As the situation of medical deserts worsens, the regulation of doctors' establishment has been a point of debate for years.

And so, in just a few days, two bills, one passed in the National Assembly on May 7 , the other in the Senate on May 13 , each providing for a form of constraint on private practice, were adopted one after the other. In the middle, a government which, fearing being caught out, announced its own plan, the flagship measure of which is a "territorial solidarity mission" for doctors, called upon to lend a hand up to two days a month in the most deprived areas.

The executive had opposed the first bill at the Palais-Bourbon, the one put forward by Guillaume Garot, the Socialist Party MP for Mayenne, who advocates the model of a practitioner's arrival being conditional upon their departure in the best-off areas. But it supported the second bill at the Palais du Luxembourg, the one defended by Philippe Mouiller, the Republican senator for Deux-Sèvres, which provides, in its Article 3, forcing general practitioners setting up in "overcrowded" areas to practice part-time in struggling areas. This proposal was adopted, shortly after 11 p.m. on Tuesday, by 190 votes in favor, against 29. Not without creating a certain amount of confusion.

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