Shortage of new doctors?

[Spectrum]

Our doc of the pass 7 yrs has been a young lady, she is moving on to pastures new "Up North" less stress she says, so what happens now we say, well we have a middle aged Dutch doc starting next week, then in Dec we have a young Spanish doc starting both at the town cabinet, then we have an experienced Congolese doc starting doing one day a week to start with at our local cabinet ie one klm away instead of ten klm so we have a choice.

[Quiksilver]

When our village MT retired in 2009 the Maire confidently assured us that we'd have a replacement in no time. The nearest he got was a Portugese doctor who was finally rejected by the Health Council because his French wasn't up to scratch. So now, 14 years on, the whole idea has been abandoned and they're to have a PC and teleconsultation.
I've nothing against foreign MTs but they certainly don't have the contacts amongst specialists and hospital doctors that the elderly, fast-disappearing MTs had.

[MAD87]

It's been a major problem for decades. When my daughter did her 1st year, the top 65 out of hundreds got through to 2nd year. That wass changed subsequently when alarm bells started ringing about shortages but I don't know what the number is now.

The really big problem though is that students can still choose their speciality, rather than the authorities giving them a list of available posts in this or that twon/city, so you end up wtih a surfeit of cardiologists and dermatologists in Paris or Toulouse and few GPs or anaesthetists.

[Lori]

It is a real problem. Try finding a GYN who is accepting new patients anywhere within 100 miles of us - not gonna happen. Local CPAM has suggested I see a Sage Femme. God forbid I might need an actual doctor...

[Bayleaf]

I'll be interested to know if the Congolese Doc is called Wilfred Ndibi (not sure if that's the right spelling, but something like that)....

[Headers]

We had 3 MTs until a couple of years ago covering 5 or 6 communes. 2 left. We have had one MT for 18 months and the stress really got to him.
We had to literally queue round the block to see him.
(No appointments).
In the last 6 months he has had an admin assistant and also a year 2 trainee from Bordeaux who helps him out 3 days a week a couple of times a month.
The queues have gone. Whether everyone else has found another MT I’m not sure.
I know he is due to retire soon and I’m quite worried about what we will do then.
No sign of any new appointees and the trainee won’t come as she prefers to work in BDX when she qualifies.

[Spectrum]

I'll be interested to know if the Congolese Doc is called Wilfred Ndibi (not sure if that's the right spelling, but something like that)....

Not met any of them yet, been given six months on our ordnance, have you had a bad experience with M Ndibi ?

[Blaze]

When we decided to downsize and move, good access to medical facilities was high on the list of desirable features. What was liveable with when we were younger may not be so easy with age. Not a question of wishing one's life into the grave, but after 2 serious accidents at home and 7 weeks of a daily 2 hour round trip (not connected with the accidents), we've chosen well moving where we have. The facilities are excellent, accepting that some specialities in the area, such as gynae and dermatologie, do have longer waiting times.

The same cannot be said for other communes along the north coast of Brittany : we've seen big signs advertising for MTs in several villages over the last few years. Young doctors don't want to work in some coastal bled that's dead in winter with only oldies for patients. One of the big downsides of so many secondaires here.
There's an excellent private clinic in Saint Malo that's expanding and takes anyone. They've even opened an "urgences" for trauma only - I went there for a suspected fracture and the wait was far shorter than if I'd gone to the main hospital.

[Bayleaf]

I'll be interested to know if the Congolese Doc is called Wilfred Ndibi (not sure if that's the right spelling, but something like that)....

Not met any of them yet, been given six months on our ordnance, have you had a bad experience with M Ndibi ?

I'll let you know, if it turns out to be the same person.