[Medical response to precariousness and poverty]

If there is a medical response to precariousness and extreme poverty, there is no illness that is specific of the poor. Diseases that are commonly found here result from the state of being homeless and often addicted. One possible medical response to the problem is to establish specialized institutions as, in Paris, the Nanterre hospital, the Social SAMU (Service d'aide médicale urgente) medical dormitories, and several outpatient clinics for precarious people. The present debate on a "two-tiers medicine" must be considered with pragmatism. Specific structures have to be imagined like places for reception and orientation that allow these patients to get access to general rights for protection and assistance.