When a medical emergency arises in the evening, we do not always know where to turn or who to contact, depending on the region where we are, the time of day. “It is illegible for the user, if you go to the Landes on vacation, you do not know if you must dial a 4-digit, 10-digit number, the 15th, you don’t even know where to find this number, so you end up dialing 15 because the hospital is the only place where the light is on 24/7 “, explains Luc Duquesnel from Unof-CSMF (union of liberal doctors), quoted by AFP.
To remedy this puzzle, the Minister of Health Marisol Touraine intends to set up a single number to reach a doctor on call and simplify access to care. This single number, the implementation procedures for which we do not yet know, should therefore give back its place to 15 as an emergency and centralize all requests for on-call doctors. The new number will therefore complement the 15: “Instead of calling 15 for a fever, we will call this number. The 15 will thus become an emergency number again and this will reduce the time taken to deal with real emergencies”, according to Claude Leicher, president of MG-France (general practitioners’ union) quoted by AFP.
In addition to simplifying the lives of users, it should save money for health insurance. Access to care 24 hours a day (doctors on call, emergencies, pharmacy, etc.) represents a cost of 1.3 billion euros per year for health insurance.
