Vincent Michot lives in Saint-Jean-d’Angély, in Charente-Maritime. The town and its surroundings are classified as a medical desert. So when the winery worker began to suffer from a toothache, the search for a dentist turned out to be hopeless. After two weeks of pain, in the absence of an available practitioner, Vincent Michot ended up resolving to pull out the diseased tooth himself, using pliers, he tells BFMTV .
“I’ve got the pain that’s there, the headache, that toothache. I can’t eat, I can’t speak because I have a tooth that bothers my lip,” he explains. After having suffered the refusal of the few dentists in the area, who do not offer new appointments for two months, he decides to contact the emergency room. But these refer him to practitioners he has already contacted. “Neither one nor two, I say to my companion: ‘I take pliers, I pull out the tooth,’ he concludes. And that’s what I did. »
“We lost all the dentists in the area,” says a resident of Saint-Jean-d’Angély. From now on, four dentists still practice on the intercommunality, for 53,000 inhabitants, and most “do not take new patients”.
“We are on 3-4 months to have an appointment”, confirms another resident, who has resigned himself to going to consult in Cognac, in New Aquitaine, even if it means driving 40 minutes by car.
In an attempt to attract new doctors, the town hall built a boarding school in front of the city hospital. A way to encourage trainees to come and facilitate their installation, hoping that they decide to stay.
