Me too, I have an occasional infection in the gum holding a surely redundant tooth and have tried without success to find a local dentist available. The town of Nontron (the last one I visited, and a good dentist too) seems to have non left, including what seems to be a whole health centre closed completely since the retirement of the resident dentist. One in Brantome is not taking new patients except under restrictive circumstances, there is another one there which I have been unable to get on the phone and unwilling to enter the massive traffic jam (might have another go soon, now that the tourists have gone) to drive there.
Fortunately I seem to be immune from toothache. I can hardly remember what it was like, the last time was at school. But I am more worried that damage might be being done.
We live in 22, Cotes D’Armor…dentists a real problem, only one practice in our small town with six dentists, and it’s not even possible to register on a waiting list. Seems you only get in if you have a friend who is a patient who will persuade a dentist to take you on, we have French friends who have big problems with dental services…But enough hairdressers to service Holywood!
But France has more doctors per capita than the UK - and a lot more dentists (France has 65 dentists per 100,000 inhabitants, the UK only 52 per 100,000) - so take comfort from the fact that however much difficulty you may have finding one here, you’d probably have a lot more difficulty if you were still in the UK!
Only when I visit SF, so many threads are about the UK that I often feel I’ve suddenly been transported across the Channel without any warning.
Having only recently returned from Blighty I’m fully aware of how dire things in the NHS etc, but that is no comfort when you need basic services such as a dentist or a doctor here. I may be an immigrant but none of my neighbours are and one family in particular having only recently arrived from the Limousin cannot find a doctor within 20 kms to take them on.
Is there really a shortage of GPs nationwide (my neighbour is one so I’ll ask him). There are many in my neck of the woods. I think the issue may be they don’t want to live in small, out of the way places.
Personally I wouldn’t worry too much about that Tim. I suspect the issues are that being a GP possibly isn’t a particularly attractive area of medicine these days and B if you are a GP, for career and family reasons, why would you want to live in the middle of nowhere.
I don’t think there will be any shortage of doctors in general. There’s a trend for “super” nurses to take an increasing role in the more basic (I know that’s the wrong word but I can’t think of a better one) work of GPs.
As for pharmacists, IMHO there are far too many of them.
We had no problems here in 11, first dentist we went to signed us both up straight away. And that was three weeks after he lost his practice in a flood. New practice was fully up and running within two more weeks at a different location.
I believe there is a shortage of doctors in France, mainly in rural areas, due to older doctors retiring and newer doctors generally not wanting to live in a rural community.
" The number of nurses from the European Economic Area joining the Nursingand Midwifery Council register has fallen more than 90%, from 9,389 in the year to 31 March 2016 to 810 in the year to 31 March 2021."
These articles are about
(a) temporary problems caused by doctors’ commitments in vaccination centres, etc, and
(b) possible future more general shortages if nothing is done (eg. increase in number of medical students).
They allude to a lack of MTs in some areas, but do not evidence a general shortage now.
Compared to most other European countries (including the UK, as I mentioned above) France has lots of doctors.
What has changed round here is that when we came 14 years ago each doctor in our local town had his own “cabinet”, which put more stress on the individual doctor (and the patient!) The number of times we sat twiddling our thumbs in front of ours as he took calls from patients phoning in. Fortunately he retired. By the time he did the town council had set up two large group practices (with admin staff and teams of nurses) and recruited doctors from other areas. Working in rural areas isn’t always bad news for doctors! And certainly from our point of view has been a great improvement.
Village a few Kms from us are so desperate for an MT they put an advertisement sign on a roundabout on the outskirts of the village. No takers yet…it’s been there at least a year.
Not just the UK Tim - I referred to doctors per capita across Europe. However, I assume for most people reading these comments the UK is the most useful comparison, since most of us have most experience of France and the UK.
In my view it’s important to get a realistic view. I don’t doubt your experience of difficulty finding a doctor - nor Strudball’s difficulty finding a dentist in his locality within my own department. But it’s important that others don’t go off with the idea that these local or temporary problems are typical, nor that they are unrelated to expectations. Of course it would be great if nobody ever experienced such problems, but knowing the true context - that they are in fact less likely to experience problems in France than most other places - is important.
But I am more worried that damage might be being done.
