Around twenty organizations, including those representing emergency medical services, hospitals and private ambulance companies, expressed their alarm on Thursday in an open letter to Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu about the consequences of the decentralization bill on emergency services.
The bill, currently undergoing final arbitration within the executive branch, plans to "entrust the operational management" of emergency services to "non-medical actors," denounces the letter signed notably by Samu Urgences de France (the main union of emergency physicians), Afarm (medical regulation assistants), CNSA (the national trade association of ambulance drivers), and also by the FHF, the federation of hospitals in France.
According to explanations gathered by AFP from Samu Urgences de France and the CNSA, the bill announced for the spring could impose the systematization in each department of a single response platform for 15 (the emergency number managed by Samu) and 18 (the emergency number managed by the firefighters).
The establishment of these platforms would be carried out under the authority of the prefects, who are also charged by the bill with defining in each department a "territorial contract for emergency relief" deciding the respective roles of the SAMU, firefighters, and private ambulance services.
"We are facing a desire for the Interior Ministry, and in particular the Civil Security and the firefighters, to seize power" over emergency services, Dr. Yann Penverne, president of Samu Urgences de France, told AFP.
"The departmental fire and rescue services (SDIS, firefighters) would take control of the pre-hospital emergency organization," also denounced ambulance driver Dominique Hunault, president of the CNSA.
In a statement published in early March, the National Federation of Firefighters (FNSPF) and the Association of Directors of Departmental Rescue Services (ANDSIS) had, for their part, deemed "incomprehensible" the distrust of representatives of emergency physicians and ambulance workers towards the bill.
"This is neither a power grab nor a questioning of anyone's competence, but rather a way to create, through this (territorial) contract, a coordination tool at the service of collective efficiency," they had estimated.
"No provision in this bill entrusts the medical care of victims to a non-medical actor. Regulation remains entirely ensured by doctors," they stated.
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