For the past two months, this Samu helicopter has landed on the roof of Archet hospital. Emergency patients are then transported by road, by ambulance, to Pasteur 2.
Transport time reduced from 45 minutes to 1 hour. For two months Samu helicopters have landed on the roof of the Archet hospital in Nice. However, the emergency room is located in Pasteur 2, where patients are then transported urgently, which lengthens the transport time.
“We are asked to transport a patient from the roof of the Archet to the Pasteur hospital, but for the patient we cannot afford to arrive so late before the patient arrives on the technical platform of the Pasteur 2 hospital,” says Christophe Bedeschi, paramedic and union representative, on the microphone of BFM Nice Côte d’Azur.
Landing not possible
Officially, however, according to the direction of the CHU, the Pasteur 2 helipad is still accessible. However, he specified that he encountered “difficulties in accessing the Pasteur 2 platform by the SAMU replacement helicopter, during maintenance on our main helicopter”.
The latter, an EC145 operated by Babcock France, was loaned to the Poitiers university hospital by the service provider, according to information from BFM Nice Côte d’Azur. Currently under construction, the replacement helicopter is a less powerful model and construction cranes on a construction site near Pasteur 2 and wind make landing impossible.
“The presence of the cranes has not been communicated to our teams. We carried out an operational study in October to study the take-off and landing corridors. There are obstacles on the trajectories that the EC135 cannot overcome in the event of engine failure” , he explains Babcock France spokesman at BFM Nice Côte d’Azur.
Before adding: “The Nice device went for maintenance in Cannet-des-Maures and we had a problem with the Poitiers device. This does not affect the problem of the Samu 06 in any way, because if it were not in Poitiers, it would be decommissioned in Cannet-des-Maures.”
A more suitable solution?
In discussions with the service provider, the University Hospital of Nice hopes to have a more suitable device available, but that won’t be until January. The CGT union calls for a temporary solution.
“We would like to have a closer installation area such as the port of Nice or a stadium, there are stadiums nearby. Something that is 10 minutes by ambulance from Pasteur,” explains Ghislaine Raquafi, secretary of the CHSCT of the east pole of l’ University Hospital of Nice.
With the resumption of winter sports and the injuries they cause, healthcare workers fear the worst for the weeks to come.
