SAMU and SMUR are two hospital departments. What is the meaning of SMUR? What does SAMU mean? What are their differences ?
What is the meaning of SMUR?
SMURs are Mobile Emergency and Resuscitation Structures. These are hospital services. They intervene for the care of a patient whose condition requires urgent medical attention and/or resuscitation maneuvers. “The reasons for using the SMUR are varied, ranging from chest pain to serious public road accidents, including anaphylactic shock, severe burns or cardiac arrest” explains Dr. Paul-Antoine Rozier, emergency physician. The SMUR team is made up a doctor specializing in emergency medicine, sometimes a pediatrician and/or an anesthesiologist, a nurse and an ambulance driver. The SMUR vehicle is equipped with complete resuscitation equipment. This hospital-based unit intervenes exclusively on the regulation of the SAMU to ensure the care, diagnosis, treatment and transport of patients in a medical emergency. People transported by SMURs are most often referred directly to specialized services and not to emergencies in order to allow optimal immediate care. For Paris and the inner suburbs, the AP-HP SMURs are located:
- For 75, in Necker, Pitié-Salpêtrière, Hôtel-Dieu and Lariboisière hospitals
- For 92, in Raymond Poincaré and Beaujon hospitals
- For the 93, at the Avicenne hospital
- For the 94, at the Henri-Mondor hospital
The pediatric SMURs, which mainly intervene for the care of newborns, are located in Necker, Robert Debré, Béclère and Avicenne.
What is the role of SAMU?
The acronym SAMU stands for “Urgent Medical Aid Service“. It is a call center that responds 24 hours a day to everyone’s health needs. The SAMU carries out a regulation which aims to provide a medical response adapted to the needs of the patient, according to the different levels. seriousness and urgency. This can range from simple advice to sending an SMUR team to a medical consultation or emergency. SAMUs also participate in the health care of victims involved in a situation exceptional as “serious multi-victim accidents or attacks” specifies Dr. Rozier, according to the emergency organization plans defined. Under article R-6311-2 of the public health code, SAMUs:
- ensure permanent medical attention;
- determine and trigger the response best suited to the nature of the calls;
- ensure the availability of hospitalization facilities, public or private, adapted to the patient’s condition;
- organize, where appropriate, transport in a public or private establishment by calling on a public service or a private medical transport company;
- oversee patient admission.
Concretely, when you contact the SAMU, the call is received by a medical regulation assistant (ARM) who collects a certain amount of information (name, address of the place, telephone number, attending physician, etc.) as well as the reason of your call. If necessary, you are put in touch with the SAMU hospital emergency medical regulator, 24 hours a day. At the end of this interview, the doctor makes a decision and will offer you:
- Advice (go to your doctor, take medicine, etc.)
- To go for a consultation with a doctor on duty or in a medical center on duty,
- To go to the emergency room
- To send a private ambulance or a team of firefighters (if it is not a medical emergency).
- To send a mobile emergency and resuscitation team, by land or by helicopter.
What is the difference between SMUR and SAMU?
The confusion between SAMU and SMUR comes from the fact that SMUR vehicles often bear the label “SAMU”. Gold, the SAMU is the fixed center for regulating calls which organizes the treatment of emergencies outside the hospital, it is he who will bring in the SMUR when necessary.
When to call the SMUR or the SAMU?
Historically, SAMU was created forr regulate vital emergency calls and engage the appropriate means in parallel with the establishment of the SMURs. Gradually, medical aid expanded to meet the needs of the population. Medical regulation is now the backbone of the organization and operation, not only of urgent medical aid, but also, and with as much importance, of the permanence of care in ambulatory medicine.
All calls that reach all 15 are identified and logged.
As such, explains Dr. Rozier, “it suits to call 15 in the event of a medical emergency but also for any request for advice or guidance in the face of a health problem. The answer given will depend on the symptoms described as well as the elements collected during the interrogation by the Medical Regulation Assistant and the Medical Regulator.. This is why he insists on the fact “that it is essential to describe as precisely as possible the questions you are asked during a call to the SAMU“.
The number to reach the SAMU from a landline or a mobile is the 15th. THE 114 is for people who are deaf and hard of hearing. He does not receive telephone voice calls. Faxes and SMS sent to “114” arrive at the national relay center located at the University Hospital Center of Grenoble. Specially trained deaf and hearing professionals then process these messages and contact the competent emergency services (police/gendarmerie, SAMU, fire brigade), if the situation requires their intervention.
Thanks to Dr. Paul-Antoine Rozier, emergency physician, for his clarifications.