From Toulouse, the “Samu des mers” responds to medical emergencies all over the globe
Created by Louis Lareng, the maritime medical consultation center based at the Purpan hospital in Toulouse (Haute-Garonne) will celebrate its 40th anniversary next year. It operates on all the seas of the world.
“She shows me the left scapula region and since then, impossible to get up because of the pain”. On the phone, a nurse aboard a ferry off the coast of England explains the situation. She was requested by a member of the crew for extremely violent back pain.
At the other end of the line, it is Dr Patrick Roux who picks up, within the “Samu des mers”, a real entity since its creation in 1983 and installed within the Purpan hospital in Toulouse. Its objective : respond to medical emergencies that may arise on ships. The doctor poses son diagnose and transmit the first aid to be carried out on the boat…
It could be a passenger on a ferry, a care manager, an oil tanker in the Arab Emirates, a captain of a container ship that would be between China and Europe, or even a trawler off Scotland or La Rochelle…
Dr Patrick Roux, hospital practitioner in emergency medicine and physician in charge of the maritime medical consultation center
Every year, 6 000 consultations are given on average by the medical center. Sometimes, the most serious cases manage a medical evacuation, a diversion of the ship or even the disembarkation of the patient.
Emergencies represent only 15% of our activity. The majority is the responsibility of general medicine: from dermatological, joint and infectious pathologies to minor traumatology.
Dr Patrick Roux, hospital practitioner in emergency medicine and physician in charge of the maritime medical consultation center
As part of his training, the master of a ship acquires skills among which result in the ability to identify the type of an event when it arises : “non-urgent, real emergency, even life-threatening emergency, and how to manage them, in conjunction with a doctor from a maritime medical consultation center”the doctor explains.
As a general rule, 80% of patients are treated on board thanks to on-board medicines. DFor the past two years, the largest ships equipped with teleconsultation cases : “This tool makes it possible to monitor vital parameters by taking blood pressure, measuring saturation, or even carrying out an electrocardiogram at the doctor’s request, possibly being able to take images…”
Medical aid at sea is free, 24 hours a day, on all the seas of the globe and on all types of ships whose captain is French.