Stéphanie Del Pino remembers what clicked.
“Last year, we found ourselves with a patient in a wheelchair but we had no means of getting him out and he took a bed,” says the director of care at the private hospital in eastern Paris. in Aulnay-sous-Bois.
It was a bit complicated.
It lasted a good five or six days.
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This story summarizes the delicate situations that hospitals are regularly confronted with: what to do with a patient, disabled or obese, who can leave the hospital but cannot return home because of a broken elevator? breakdown or a flight of steps impossible to climb?
“What belongs to the ambulance crew is the journey from the door of the hospital to the door of the building but nothing is thought of for the journey to the door of the person”, recalls Samuel Forestier, director territorial association actions for APF France Handicap.
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To remedy these situations, an unprecedented agreement has just been signed between its association, the private hospital in eastern Paris and SAMV (vertical mobility assistance solution).
This company, born in Bobigny in 2016 as a continuation of the Plus sans elevator collective, provides the Vertimove, a chair designed to allow people with reduced mobility to leave their homes.
“A real problem that pollutes the lives of family caregivers and people in medically vulnerable situations”
SAMV has already signed a contract with municipalities and several social landlords in the event of an elevator breakdown, but this is a first with the hospital world, explains its founder Fouad Ben Ahmed.
“This project aims to fight against the break in the care chain,” he says.
And in this way, we can relieve the burden on ambulance workers.
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“We think this is an innovation that will give hope to overweight people,” he continues.
This is a real problem that pollutes the lives of family caregivers and people in medically vulnerable situations.
» Fouad Ben Ahmed regrets “unthoughts”: “Sometimes, a patient will obtain a transport voucher with an approved medical taxi but the driver cannot take the person out of their apartment.
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Since signing this agreement at the end of January, his company has not yet had to take charge.
But four experiments have been carried out successfully according to the founder of SAMV, who says he is in discussions with other hospital establishments.
The private hospital will pay the company for the number of services provided.
“To quantify the number of requests in advance is complicated but it is certain that we have more and more,” explains Stéphanie Del Pino.
According to her, 22,000 emergency room visits, 39,000 dialysis sessions and 13,100 hospital or outpatient stays were recorded last year in her structure.