Opened in December 2003, the medical care center (MMG) of La Grave, installed in the premises of the hospital of the same name, could well disappear. The oldest on-call medical center in the department does not appear in the specifications for the new organization of outpatient care, which will take effect in April 2023. The on-call sector in Toulouse will be covered by SOS Médecins (2 sites) and the Purpan MMG which is due to open soon on the site of the University Hospital Center (CHU) of Toulouse as required by the pact for the overhaul of emergencies (a medical center on duty must be installed next to an emergency department accommodating more than 50,000 patients per year).

ARS Occitanie, through Thierry Cardouat, Haute-Garonne departmental director, explains that it is “necessary to have the model evaluated and to restore equity in the financing and support for medical care homes”. From April 2023, the La Grave medical center will no longer receive a subsidy from the ARS (€85,000 per year).

“La Grave is an unscheduled care centre, it is not a medical center on duty. We need a place with regulation, which will be the Purpan MMG. I proposed that the association of doctors from La Grave takes care of that of Purpan: in response, I only received insults”, summarizes Professor Stéphane Oustric, president of the council of the order of doctors of Haute-Garonne.

10,000 consultations in 2022

The doctors who reported to La Grave saw red. “We carry out more than 10,000 consultations per year, our activity has increased by 54% in 2022 with a third of pediatrics… We are not defending a medical practice but a public service! We have been on call for twenty years when no one didn’t want to do it in Toulouse and now we are being asked to fill an empty shell at Purpan! 2022”, declare Dr Jean-François Reinard and Dr Sylvestre Guillevic, president and vice-president of the Maison Médicale de Garde association. Toulouse 31.

In Purpan, discussions on the building

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In Toulouse, a new on-call medical center is ready to open in Purpan

As for the Purpan MMG, not everything has yet been settled between the CHU, which makes the premises available, and the Council of the Order of Physicians in charge of the on-call schedules. 200 m pre-fabricated buildings² have been ready since February 2022 at the back of the children’s hospital. “There is no question of installing doctors there between 8 p.m. and midnight, it is far from everything, without visibility for patients and too risky in terms of security”, launches the president of the Council of the Order of Physicians. A solution could emerge with the provision of consultation rooms on the first floor of the children’s hospital.