2024-01-12 06:00:00
New mess with the Samu 06 helicopter. The drop zone of the Nice hospital has been closed for a week due to… a lack of equipment.
On the evening of January 3, the management of the CHU learned, by email, that it would no longer have any equipment from the next day until further notice. This email was sent by the Babcok group, a multinational headquartered in London, with which the hospital has been under contract since 2020 and for eight years. A contract that costs Nice taxpayers one million euros per year: the price of having, 365 days a year, a high-performance helicopter capable of flying to save lives. For now, it’s a failure.
“We found ourselves with our backs once morest the wall”
“ We learned that overnight, we found ourselves with our backs once morest the wall. This is unacceptable, both in substance and in form. Especially since this situation was predictable and avoidable”protests the director of the material resources center of the CHU, Kévin Rossignol, very angry with the service provider.
What happened?
Some time ago, the hospital’s helicopter, an EC 145, went in for maintenance – a regulatory process following a certain number of flight hours. As agreed in the contract, a replacement device of the same model was supplied by Babcok. Except that this second machine itself reached its flight limit and was shut down for maintenance. And “the company is unable to provide us with a new machine until further notice!”exclaims an executive from Samu 06. Result: the CHU is obliged to call on Civil Security and its Dragon 06 or helicopters from neighboring departments if the latter is already on a mission.
“These devices come to support us, emergency care is ensured “, reassures Doctor Julie Contenti, head of the emergency medicine department (emergencies – Samu-Smur).
“Support delays”
The healthcare teams are concerned regarding “delays in care which might have dramatic consequences”.
“If we have to call the Marseille helicopter for a patient who has a stroke in Nice, it is certain that we lose a lot of time. And time for us is essential: we take care of patients and injured in a life-threatening emergency”alerts Christophe Bedeschi, CGT union representative.
The absence of the EC-145 from the CHU is “all the more problematic as we are in the winter and therefore skiing period where we regularly take care of multiple trauma patients, he continues. For patient safety, the situation must settle very soon.”
Summons and penalties
A solution should be found today, hopes the manager of material resources, Kévin Rossignol.
“The general director of the CHU and that of Babcok spoke this Thursday. We were assured that we would have a helicopter at noon”he explains.
Enough to get out of this difficulty but the matter will not stop there. The CHU is determined to put “a put of pressure on the service provider. We contacted the ARS and the AP-HM (it is the public assistance of Marseille hospitals which is driving the market with Babcok, a market which concerns five departments including the Alpes-Maritimes). Babcok will be summoned. There was a serious lack of communication and an unacceptable situation. Penalties will be applied. We want a helicopter that flies and lands. For the price we pay, that’s what we demand!”
When requested, the Babcock group did not respond to our requests for explanations.
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