Medical deserts: Elisabeth Borne will present a “rural plan” Thursday, June 15

While a bill to resolve medical deserts will be debated Monday in the National Assembly, Élisabeth Borne announced that she will present a “rural plan” Thursday, June 15 “with very concrete measures to improve the lives of the 40 % of French people who live in rural areas.

The Prime Minister thus wishes to “redevelop local businesses”. “We have selected 76 multi-service retail projects which will relocate to small villages and which we will support with aid, declared Élisabeth Borne, during the program “Dimanche en politique” on France 3. We also want support the relocation of public services, the France Services houses”.

The Prime Minister is not in favor of an amendment that 200 deputies will table to block the installation of general practitioners, where their numbers are considered too high. “I don't think it's by preventing general practitioners from settling in areas where there are too many doctors, we will respond to their difficulties (French people, editor's note). First, where are the areas where there are too many general practitioners?", responded Elisabeth Borne.

Élisabeth Borne explained that she acted by "a whole series of measures", from the abolition of the "numerus clausus" to train more doctors, to medical assistants to allow practitioners to see more patients or to the addition of a 4th year for interns in general medicine "to enable them to practice in less dense territories". The number of health centers, where doctors can practice with nurses in particular, must also increase from around 2,300 today to "4,000 at the end of the five-year term", she added.