REPORTAGE. Emergency medical units, these teams without doctors who intervene at home to unclog the hospital

“It’s the team sent by the Samu, can you open the door for us, please ma’am?” François-Xavier was sent to Paule, 93: she called the Samu because her hand was very bad. “It’s very swollen”she describes as he examines her hand. “Apart from osteoarthritis, do you have any health problems ?”, asks François-Xavier. “Yes, I had peripheral neuropathy”, replies the nonagenarian. The dialogue begins, like a classic medical consultation.

But the particularity of this unit is that there is no doctor on board: François-Xavier is a volunteer for the Samu, and works as a cabin manager in the planes. By her side, Ilona, ​​a young nurse, takes the patient’s blood pressure and temperature. Since 2020, these units have been developing throughout France. There are already twelve of them, among others in Île-de-France, Normandy and Aquitaine. Others are being created, encouraged by the Braun report, to relieve emergency services.

Ilona, ​​the pair’s nurse, carries a large briefcase stuffed with instruments by her side. There is even enough to do an ultrasound and above all a computer, a printer and a telephone to organize a teleconsultation with a doctor, via SauvLife. The company was started by an emergency physician and has its own list of doctors. And when they are not free, SauvLife takes priority at SOS Médecins. After ten minutes, the call goes through: “We are going to put this lady on cortisone for three or four days, and a little Lamalin for the pain.prescribed remotely by the practitioner. Four a day, given her age, and then she’ll do an x-ray to make sure there’s no fracture. I’m sending you the prescription.”

The team prints the prescriptions, and just as they are leaving, François-Xavier receives another call from the Samu. Three new patients await him: an abscess in the abdomen, vertigo and pimple eruptions. Since January, all these mobile emergency units have seen more than 9,000 patients.