Eliminating Medical Deserts (I) : Tales from the Past and the Present

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When the decision was made to devote a special dossier to health issues, we at Futuribles quickly approached Emmanuel Vigneron with a request to share his knowledge on a subject he has studied for many years: namely, ‘medical deserts’ or, in other words, the problem of mismatches between the supply of, and the demand for, medical treatment. With his co-author Émilie Bérard, Professor Vigneron has reflected in considerable depth on the problem of ‘eliminating medical deserts’. The lessons to be drawn from that thinking will be published in multiple instalments in coming issues of this journal.This article is the first in the series. In a somewhat literary style greatly at variance with the usual articles to be found in Futuribles, it offers a narrative, in the form of brief dramatic scenes, that exemplifies the concept of the ‘medical desert’ through the depiction of concrete situations. Based in metropolitan France or the country’s overseas territories, with scenes from the very recent past and from almost 80 years ago, these ‘slices of life’ provide an insight into what is meant by ‘medical deserts’, showing how an area ends up becoming such a ‘desert’ and how that plays out in the experience of the citizens and practitioners in the area. All in all, this first article indicates the broad range of phenomena covered by the expression, as an essential preliminary, in the authors’ view, to the more quantitative analysis that will be published in a subsequent issue of Futuribles.