Call for better use of helicopters
Senators voted through a law guaranteeing that everyone who is seriously ill or injured may be taken to emergency hospital services in no longer than 30 minutes, through more effective use of helicopters.
The senators said some remoter or mountainous parts of France, where a helicopter is vital, are poorly served, leading to more deaths.
By road it can take an hour and a half or more to get to a hospital with suitable services, they said.
The idea is to “guarantee equality of chances for access to care to all citizens” by creating a service at national level. Attached to the Prime Minister’s office, it would work out how helicopters should be deployed across France.
For the measure to be passed, it now needs to be debated by MPs.
In Paris, meanwhile, police have brought in a new dedicated number to cope better with all the non-emergency calls they receive (around half a million a year).
While emergency calls to 17 for police will remain free, the new number – 34 30 – is charged at six centimes a minute on top of any charges by your phone company.
It replaces the telephone numbers of the Préfecture de Police and all police stations in the capital.
The Préfecture de Police told Le Parisien the charge had been introduced ‘to modernise the system of handling non-urgent calls,’ and it was ‘obviously not to make a profit’.
Other public services in the capital, including CAF, Cpam and the mairie, already operate similar charged-for telephone services.
