Avoid congestion
The awareness campaign launched this summer should also make it possible to avoid overcrowding in the centers in the fall. “If people are waiting for the start of the school year, they risk being disappointed with the wait: it is now that the deadlines are favourable”, underlines Dr. Laville. She recalls that a third of Lot-et-Garonnais will regularly be tested.
But what about the others? “It’s often the same people who come back year after year.” On this point, the cell of The Lot-et-Garonne Cancer League, located in Agen, underlines the disparities between the north and the south of the department, between the rural areas and those more urbanized. “It is generally the inhabitants of the centers and the peripheries who go to be tested, while people from rural areas come to see the doctor less. Preventive culture finds it more difficult to integrate rural areas. When you’re well, why should you bother to drive 50 km to get tested? “, sighs Inès, the secretary of the League.
Disparities between territories
In addition to the distances to be crossed, medical desertification does not help, and the difficulties of access to care, in rural areas, affect the screening rate. To encourage the most reluctant to be tested, the League is carrying out awareness-raising actions in the villages, in the markets: “There are those who stop, but also those who systematically reject us, with “I don’t have any no need, I’m not interested. We are also considering offering buses to bring people to the screening centers. We try to find solutions to inform people,” explains the secretary.
In the department, the various centers are located in town, Agen, Villeneuve-sur-Lot and Marmande. At the Department’s Coordination Center, Émeline Lavialle, in charge of public health, deploys prevention posters throughout the territory, “in hospitals, health centers, but also town halls, which are directly responsible for distributing to associations, and local places: bakeries, union of traders, hairdressers and institutes, and tobacconists. »