what “actual”, “absolute”, “potential” or “relative” emergency means

In intervention, the emergency services are required to carry out a medical triage for logistical reasons. Especially when the number of injured is important. The explosion of a building in the 5th arrondissement of Paris caused around fifty injuries, including six in absolute emergency, according to the latest report communicated by the Paris prosecutor’s office. The victims are classified according to the severity of their injuries. What do these different medical terms mean?

“Felt” urgency can be “true” or “false”

As a first step, firefighters or doctors must determine if the “emergency felt” by the patient is a “true emergency”. According to the dictionary of the National Academy of Medicine, “the urgency felt depends above all on the pain perceived by the patient or estimated by those around him”. This urgency is “true” as soon as she “is recognized as such by a competent authority”. But the rescue can also declare that the emergency is “fake” whether “the situation is considered urgent by the callers but which in reality is not”.

“Absolute”, “potential” or “relative” urgency

In the event of a “true emergency”, the emergency services must assess the seriousness of the injuries. They must distinguish between absolute and relative emergencies. These two terms are regularly used in the media. Absolute urgency encompasses many cases. According to the Academy of Physicians, the patient should be classified in this category when his condition may “evolve into very serious complications, even death, if not treated as soon as possible”. But his vital prognosis is not necessarily engaged.

Relative urgency is defined as follows: “Situation of a patient whose treatment can wait.” There is also a term to describe an intermediate situation: “potential emergency”, i.e. when the patient “only requires careful monitoring, but the situation can deteriorate unpredictably”. The committed vital prognosis corresponds to the situation in which a doctor is “unable to say how the patient’s condition will evolve in the coming hours”. This is the case, for example, when the blood pressure of the victim is not stabilized or when there remains a risk of haemorrhage, etc. The vital prognosis can remain engaged for several days.