INTERVIEW
On December 29, 2017, Naomi Musenga died five hours after attempting to contact Samu. Taking violent abdominal pain, her calls for help at 15 remain in vain. Because at the other end of the line, the operator, who shows no empathy, does not judge his case important. A case that has highlighted several malfunctions within this service medical regulatory assistants. About twenty cases have been listed by the Ministry of Health in two years. Like this 3-year-old girl, Lissana, who died in January 2018 from a flu in Aix-les-Bains, or the 60-year-old woman who died in her home in Mulhouse last September, ten days after complaining about chest pain. Each time, the responsibility of the Samu regulator is pointed out.
Train "professionals"
This is why the Ministry of Health now imposes a one-year training, in ten accredited centers, for these assistants of medical regulation, which are 2,500 in France. "It is addressed to people who are 18 years old, who have a baccalaureate", or to those who "begins a professional training", explains Eric Chanzy, trainer in the regulation of Samu. The first return of training Samu Ile-de-France, to learn how to better respond to emergency calls, begins Monday. Thirty people make up this promotion. These medical regulatory assistants will receive a "national and homogeneous training".
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Among the skills that will be taught, there will begin to "communication techniques", Eric Chanzy details, but also "the management of operational resources, the use of computer tools or radio available, and the management of exceptional health situations" . All in order to train "professionals", he recalls, who will be prepared "to take this type of appeal", so that cases like that of Naomi Musenga does not happen again.