REPORTAGE – From the Purpan hospital, the emergency physicians of the Maritime Medical Consultation Center coordinate medical emergencies on board all ships sailing around the globe. One of the only free services in the world.
Phone glued to the ear, Dr. Emilie Dehours opens the doors of the Toulouse Samu. Far from responding to a harmless call, the emergency doctor from the emergency medicine center of the Pink City University Hospital, mask on his nose, is in full consultation. On the other end of the line – and the world – a sailor off the coast of Singapore needs his advice on how to treat an eye infection. She is part of the Maritime Medical Consultation Center (CCMM), a unit within Samu 31 that helps sailors around the world.
Once inside the Louis Lareng pavilion, named after the founder of Samu and CCMM, she invites us to follow her into a small room, adjoining the huge Samu 31 call control room, where the assistants of medical regulation (ARM) respond to emergency calls 24 hours a day. The CCMM doctors sit at their desks in front of three computers. Only the fishing brochures, the planisphere or even the posters of navigation races betray…
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