Europe 1 with AFP // Photo credit: JOE RAEDLE / GETTY IMAGES NORTH AMERICA / AFP 14:50 p.m., November 20, 2023

On 17 November, the SNCF announced its desire to install teleconsultation spaces in around 300 stations by 2028. A decision that is not to the liking of the Order of Physicians, which accuses the railway company of wanting to divert health professionals and make them less available to practice in vulnerable territories."

On Monday, the Order of Physicians strongly criticized the SNCF's plan to install medical teleconsultation spaces in its stations, advising it instead to "improve the rail service to the most isolated territories" to attract health professionals. "The Order of Physicians can only express its deep concern" about the SNCF's plan to set up teleconsultation spaces in around 300 stations by 2028.

The SNCF will do better to "improve rail service to the most isolated territories"

"This proposal will divert health professionals, who will thus be less available to practice in the most vulnerable territories," predicted the Order of Physicians, which also denounced a new step towards the "financialization" of the health system. The Order "calls much more" on the SNCF to "improve rail service to the most isolated territories, a real challenge of the attractiveness of the territories with regard to the installation of health professionals", he added.

SNCF said on Friday it wants to deploy telemedicine spaces to combat medical deserts in about 300 stations by 2028. These 15-square-meter spaces are to be installed initially in modular buildings provided by Loxamed, a subsidiary of the Loxam group (rental of construction equipment). It has designed modules specialising in care, which are used in particular during the health crisis to carry out screening.

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The SNCF said a nurse would always be present on site, and that each patient "will be examined remotely by a doctor practicing on French territory". Loxamed plans to contact the Regional Unions of Health Professionals (URPS) to find nurses and private doctors who will provide teleconsultations. The doctors' union UFML (French Union for Free Medicine) also strongly denounced the initiative of the SNCF and Loxamed, seeing it as a new example of the development of a "very lucrative low-cost medicine" for companies.

"There can be no good medicine made up of consumption at the touch of a button at a distance from a doctor who does not know the patient," the union criticized.