Question 8949 — pharmacy and medicines

Summary

Mrs. Sabine Thillaye draws the attention of the Minister Delegate to the Minister of Health and Prevention, responsible for territorial organization and health professions, to the conditions for the establishment of pharmacies and more specifically to the demographic threshold which conditions these establishments. By regulating the establishment of pharmacies, the legislator's intention was to ensure equal access to medicines. It was thus to avoid on the one hand the overdensity of pharmacies in certain large municipalities to the detriment of other smaller ones and to limit on the other hand and for the sake of efficiency, the installation of pharmacies in underpopulated areas. Thus, article L. 5125-4 of the public health code provides that a pharmacy cannot set up in a municipality of less than 2,500 inhabitants. Article L. 5125-6-1 specifies that, in the case of municipalities contiguous areas, none of which would meet this demographic threshold, the general director of the ARS may authorize by order the establishment of a pharmacy serving all of these municipalities. However, this regulation of settlements ignores certain realities on the ground, more specifically in rural areas. In these territories, municipalities of less than 2,500 inhabitants have successfully carried out a proactive policy in favor of the installation of health professionals, in particular general practitioners. However, and despite the presence of several doctors on their territory, these municipalities, because they have less than 2,500 inhabitants, find themselves today unable to accommodate a pharmacy, on the grounds that their geographical area would already be covered by a pharmacy established in a neighboring municipality. Thus, the patient base of these practitioners is see themselves forced to travel 10 to 15 kilometers (in areas with significant mobility problems) to buy the medications they have been prescribed. It should also be noted that a pharmacy installed in the town center is an important lever of dynamism, from which it would seem legitimate that municipalities which have been able to rely on health professions to develop could benefit. From then on, she would like to know whether it would not be appropriate to add to the existing framework the possibility, for a municipality of less than 2,500 inhabitants, of hosting a pharmacy if it has a to-be-defined number of health professionals, including general practitioners, in its territory, which demonstrates its investment in health.

Machine translation from French. The official text remains authoritative.

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