The Healthcare System in Martinique: Organisation, Hospitals, Emergencies, Medical Evacuations and Health Risks

Martinique comes under national health organisation. The Regional Health Agency (ARS) of Martinique, based in Fort-de-France, implements the 2023-2028 regional health project, which targets in particular the shortage of health human resources, the accelerated ageing of the population and the high prevalence of chronic diseases (IEDOM). The Collectivité territoriale de Martinique, which inherited the department’s powers, leads social action: child protection and maternal and child protection, the disability compensation benefit, the personalised autonomy allowance, integration.

Hospital provision is mainly public. The table below compares Martinique’s equipment rates with those of the French departments in the Americas and of metropolitan France. IEDOM notes that short-stay capacities have fallen markedly in medicine, surgery and gynaecology-obstetrics.

Title V of Book VII of the Social Security Code makes general legislation applicable to Martinique (Article L. 751-1) and provides for a CGSS specific to the territory (Article L. 752-1). CLEISS (the French centre for European and international social security liaison) specifies that, in the overseas departments, benefits are paid by the CGSS and not by the CPAM. The CGSS of Martinique, based in Le Lamentin, brings together health insurance, pensions, the Urssaf (the social security contributions collection body) and occupational risks.

• General condition: working or living in France on a stable and lawful basis opens entitlement to healthcare cover. An employee has no minimum period to show; a self-employed person is covered from the start of their activity (Assurance Maladie).
• Person with no occupation: cover rests on residence; in case of inspection, proof of 6 months of residence in France over the last 12 months is requested (Assurance Maladie). Cerfa form S1106 is submitted to the fund of the place of residence when the opening of rights is not automatic (CLEISS).
• Complémentaire Santé Solidaire: free up to a ceiling of annual income, revised each year, for a single person in the overseas departments, and with a financial contribution up to a second ceiling (service-public.gouv.fr).
• No expatriation formality: no social security agreement, no European Health Insurance Card, no Caisse des Français de l’Étranger (CFE, the French overseas nationals’ health fund) to live in Martinique.

Martinique has nearly 470 general practitioners, about 230 dental surgeons and about 70 occupational therapists. Densities per 100,000 inhabitants of private-practice or mixed professionals are 130 for general practitioners, 188 for specialists, 64 for dental surgeons and 43 for speech therapists, levels comparable to those of metropolitan France (123 general practitioners, 186 specialists, 67 dental surgeons) (ARS and STATISS, via IEDOM).

The care pathway is the standard one: choice of a GP of record (médecin traitant), Vitale card and ameli account, the local fund being the CGSS. For care outside opening hours, the ARS’s “out-of-hours care” section presents out-of-hours ambulatory care and out-of-hours pharmacy care; in a medical emergency, dial 15.

The Martinique University Hospital (CHU), a public facility with care, teaching and research missions, presents 7 hospitals. The Pierre Zobda-Quitman hospital, in Fort-de-France, hosts adult emergencies (05 96 55 20 00) and paediatric emergencies (05 96 55 11 82); the SAMU (emergency medical service) can be reached on 15. Its divisions cover notably emergencies and intensive care, women, mothers and children, geriatrics, oncology, cardiology and neurosciences. The CHU hosts a regional centre for occupational and environmental pathologies.

Three facilities have a maternity unit. The Ségur health plan funds reconstructions in Martinique worth €251 million of State credits, supplemented by a second envelope of €108 million for 2026-2029: the Saint-Esprit hospital complex (hospital and nursing home), the reconstruction of the Pierre Zobda-Quitman CHU and that of the La Trinité hospital. A university health hub, intended for students in medicine, nursing, midwifery and physiotherapy, is announced.

National emergency numbers: 15 (SAMU), 17 (police emergency), 18 (fire brigade), 112 (European number), 114 (deaf or hard-of-hearing people), 196 (sea rescue) and 3114 (suicide prevention) (Ministry of the Interior).

When care cannot be provided on the spot, the Assurance Maladie distinguishes two cases: the medical transfer, travel from home to a distant place of care, and the medical evacuation, medically supervised travel from the place of hospitalisation. Martinique is among the territories concerned, with Guadeloupe, French Guiana, Réunion, Mayotte, Saint-Barthélemy, Saint-Martin and Corsica; French Polynesia, New Caledonia, Saint-Pierre-et-Miquelon and Wallis and Futuna are not part of it.

• Transport: covered on “prior approval equivalent to a medical prescription”, given by the healthcare professional if the state of health justifies it and under certain conditions.
• Medical costs: reimbursed in part or in full if the exemption conditions are met.
• Companion: their travel costs can be covered, under conditions set with the doctor treating the patient.
• Sick leave: daily allowances can be paid by the fund if the doctor prescribes leave.
• Contacts: the facility’s social service or healthcare access service (PASS) during a hospital stay; outside hospitalisation, the administrative or social referent of the fund of residence. The Assurance Maladie publishes a health-related travel passport.

The sources consulted do not detail coverage of accommodation. An assistance policy can supplement what the Assurance Maladie does not cover.

Medicines are reimbursed at 65% when their medical benefit is major or important, at 30% when moderate, at 15% when low and at 100% for irreplaceable and particularly expensive medicines; a €1 medical deductible applies per box (Assurance Maladie). General practitioner consultations are reimbursed at 70% and hospitalisation at 80%; the breakdown by situation is in the guide who reimburses what in Martinique.

The sources consulted do not publish a medicine reimbursement rate specific to Martinique: the national rates apply.

• Dengue: Santé publique France tracks the situation by phase of the alert system (for example “isolated outbreaks”). The Haute Autorité de santé recommended in December 2024 the Qdenga vaccine in the French territories of the Americas for children aged 6 to 16 who have already had dengue and adults aged 17 to 60 with comorbidities, in two doses three months apart and during the inter-epidemic period.
• Leptospirosis: probable or confirmed cases are notified, with an upsurge in the rainy season; at-risk activities are gardening, farming, livestock rearing, hiking, swimming in rivers and freshwater fishing (Santé publique France).
• Chlordecone: the results of the Kannari 2 study find detectable chlordecone in the great majority of adults in Martinique, a significant share of them above the internal toxicological reference value (0.4 µg/L). Exposure is associated with eating the most contaminated fish and crustaceans and food from informal channels; Santé publique France wishes to strengthen prevention messages.
• Sargassum: strandings release harmful gases (IEDOM); the ARS devotes a section to sargassum seaweed. According to the prefecture, a network of sensors operated with Madininair has measured hydrogen sulphide and ammonia in affected urban areas since September 2015, and sentinel doctors report weekly the consultations possibly linked to these gases.
• Respiratory infections: Santé publique France publishes regular bulletins on flu, bronchiolitis and Covid-19, with seasonal rises in cases.

Other vaccination recommendations come under the national vaccination schedule; the “vaccination” section of the ARS of Martinique points to up-to-date documents. Instructions in case of hurricane, earthquake or volcanic activity are in the guide living in Martinique.