The fall promises to be "complicated" for the emergency services, the mobile emergency and resuscitation services (Smur) and the 15th, whose teams "are wrung out", warned Monday the president of the association Samu-Urgences de France (SUdF) Marc Noizet, successor to the Minister of Health François Braun at the head of the organization.

"This fall is undoubtedly going to be very complicated, we don't necessarily look to the future with a smile," Dr Noizet, also head of the emergency department in Mulhouse (Haut-Rhin), told AFP.

“The teams are strained, there is a strong expectation from professionals, we have very fragile teams, where people are demobilized, so from this start of the school year we will have to be able to give strong signals to professionals to prevent the bleeding worsens and that some emergency services find themselves in even greater difficulty,” he said.

"All the measures that will be able to be made permanent will be so many positive signals that will restore some hope to these services", considered Dr Noizet, on the sidelines of a press conference on the experiment in Haut- Rhine of a mobile telemedicine team.

A little less activity this summer

Without yet being able to give a quantified assessment of activity for the emergency services during the summer months, Dr Noizet indicated that "probably, the activity in August of the emergency services was a little less than expected", while on the other hand the 15 centers experienced "a still significant increase in activity compared to 2021".

This can be explained in particular by the experimentation of “systematic prior regulation”, by asking sick people to call 15 rather than going to the emergency room directly.

Telemedicine also makes it possible to avoid many visits to the emergency room.

Thus, the mobile telemedicine vehicle set up by the Sauv'Life association and tested since August 22 in the Alsatian department allows a home visit by a nurse who will organize a video call for the patient.

"The health professional will be the eyes and hands of the doctor who is at a distance", which will in most cases avoid a trip to the emergency room by ambulance when the doctor cannot get there, explained Pr Lionel Lamhaut, founder of Sauv'Life.

“We can no longer work side by side”

Sixteen vehicles of this type, at the request of the regulating doctors of the 15th, are already crisscrossing different departments, mainly for consultations with the elderly.


“This is the big lesson of this summer: we can no longer work side by side, we have to be much more agile, more economical with the health system too”, estimated Dr Noizet. .

Health

Hospital: "The announced disaster did not happen", according to François Braun, who remains "cautious"

Health

Emergencies: The Minister of Health admits that several services are closed in the country

  • Hospital

  • Emergency room

  • Medicine

  • Doctor

  • Health