Several subjects occupy the French Syndicate of allergists (Syfal), since Friday, October 8, in Chartres. For the occasion, the fourteen members of its board of directors are gathered at the hotel-restaurant le Boeuf crowned in Chartres, for a conference scheduled to end on Sunday, October 10.
Pathology on the rise, practitioners on the decline
“Allergy is a pathology which has increased exponentially since 1960 and which is worsening”, reports Isabelle Bossé, president of Syfal. While a doubling of the world population with allergies (it currently represents 25% in France) is announced by 2050, the demography of specialists in this pathology does not follow the same curve. “In Eure-et-Loir, we are two,” laments Dr. Julien Cottet, who works in Chartres while the president of the union evokes her department, Charente-Maritime, hardly better off, with three specialists.
Improve the patient’s care path
To compensate for this lack and improve patient care, Syfal sees a solution in “the training of general practitioners, pharmacists, pediatricians and all health professionals who work with the patient”. “Some patients can be taken care of by their doctor, ENT … but others can only be taken care of by an allergist because it is extremely complicated”, specifies Dr Bossé.
Shortage of allergists in Eure-et-Loir
Better train general practitioners, ENT, pediatricians …
Better trained, these professionals will then refer to allergists only those cases that require it. “The general practitioner who discovers hypertension, he” checks “it, he treats it, and does not send to the cardiologist. When immediately, it is serious, he sends to the specialist. Us, it is the opposite, one sends us all from the beginning, the moderate forms, serious… A specialist must have an added value. Send patients to us to tell them: “You have a stomach ache when you eat gluten, well, don’t eat gluten anymore”, what is the added value? », Asks the doctor from Chartres.
Not very correct, either, believe the two allergists, to make patients wait several months, for nothing. With “this sorting” upstream, the goal is to welcome in the practices, only people with pathologies really dependent on a specialist. And Dr Bossé makes the link: “Exercising in good conditions also makes things more fluid, simpler for the patient”.
“Drago”, an app launched by allergists from Chartres and Orleans to help patients with their desensitization treatment
A full-fledged diploma
Allergology has become a specialty recently. “Before, it was a complementary diploma that a general practitioner could do, a pediatrician, an ENT … We came from all walks of life. Since 2017, it has been a choice at the boarding school and internal students study four years in allergology, like any specialist, ”underlines Dr Cottet.
A breakthrough in which the union claims a part, because of its mobilization on this issue. “It was a long battle,” recalls Dr Bossé. And one of the reasons for this fight, “it was the perpetuation, at the hospital-university level, of the units where allergology was practiced. For example, in pneumo, in dermatology, we had a small allergology unit, and it was enough for the head of department to retire for everything to stop. The allergological structure was completely dismantled. So he was a dependent individual, ”remarks the president of Syfal. Making allergology a full-fledged medical specialty can remedy this and encourage new vocations.
Respiratory allergies or Covid-19? Julien Cottet, allergist in Chartres, explains how to differentiate them
“Allergics not contraindicated to the vaccine”
Even today, says Dr Bossé, he happens to see people arrive in his office who say to him: “‘I do not want to be vaccinated because we do not know what is inside” or “j had a penicilin allergy when I was five years old. The right information has difficulty getting across to the public. “And Dr. Cottet to add:” There has been so much disinformation on disinformation, rumors. It’s catastrophic ! But we, from the start, have been saying: allergics are not contraindicated to the vaccine ”.
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