Emergency medical care in France

Emergency Medical Aid (AMU) has existed on an organized basis in France for ten years. Considering that every call for medical assistance requires an answer the SAMU (Emergency Medical Aid Service) acts as a switchboard. Its implantation in a hospital and its powerful centralized telecommunications make it possible to adapt responses to the type of case: serious ones require sophisticated equipment, whereas non-serious ones come under a General Practitioner. Treatment is free. Minor cases are taken care of by "omnipractitioners" who can be contacted by the SAMU via portable radio transceivers. Serious cases are dealt with by the Mobile Emergency and Intensive Care Service (SMUR); they either drive or fly to the spot within an average time-limit of ten minutes. The SMUR teams are composed of a physician, a nurse, often a student and a driver or a pilot. The physician makes the diagnosis, radios a description of the case and gives first-aid treatment. The minimal SMUR equipment fits into two cases. The SAMU also have other missions such as: teaching, prevention, disasters. The French system is aimed at reducing inequality in emergency situations and guaranteeing the whole population permanent medical care. Its cost to the public, however, is only +1 per inhabitant per year.