Faced with the threats hanging over the Smur de Quillan, Déborah Bousquet and Yves Aniort decided to testify, to recall the need for efficient and functional local emergency services. Both tell how the rapid intervention of the Smur and the firefighters saved their life or that of one of their relatives.
Yves Aniort and Déborah Bousquet do not know each other. One is mayor of Granès. The other lived in Sainte-Colombe-Sur-Guette before moving to Axat. However, each of them wanted to tell their story, to show the importance “capital” local emergency assistance. And for good reason: without them, each of them could have lost their daughter.
A car accident
Last July, the daughter of Yves Aniort is the victim of a serious road accident. Hit by a utility vehicle as she was returning to Granès, the mother of the family was taken care of by the Espéraza firefighters and the Smur de Quillan. She was placed in an artificial coma before being airlifted to Purpan hospital in Toulouse.
A responsiveness that undoubtedly saved his life, says Yves Aniort: “In Toulouse, the doctor told me: you can thank the locals, they are the ones who saved your daughter”. Still hospitalized today, she is now “out of business” even though “care is still needed”. “The emergency services did a remarkable job.greets Yves Aniort. We must emphasize the quality of their skills, both professional and material.”
A hemorrhage at four months of pregnancy
Delphine Bousquet, too, surely owes her life and that of her daughter to the proximity of the emergency services. In 2014, when she was four months pregnant, she suffered a major haemorrhage. “The Smur took me down from Sainte-Colombe-Sur-Guette, where I lived, to Quillan to stabilize me. I was then airlifted to Carcassonne and then to Perpignanshe says. My pocket of waters was pierced, I needed a particular follow-up.
A month later, when she returned home, new bleeding. “This time, the Smur doctor immediately called in the helicopter, so as not to take any risks.” A reactivity that will allow her to continue her pregnancy up to five weeks before the term, without risk for her or her baby.
The care lottery
Two stories that show, according to their protagonists, “the importance of having a close network in terms of relief”. And this every day. “During the month of August, the Smur de Quillan did not always have a doctor. It’s the lottery, if we have an accident on the right day it’s fine, otherwise our life is in danger”, believes Yves Aniort. If he deplores this establishment of a degraded procedure, the mayor of Granès however takes his hat off to the Departmental Council. “Few people know this, but he is the one financing the helicopter.”
However, he regrets the “state failure” on this increasingly burdensome medical desertification in the Upper Valley, contrary, according to him, to the declaration of the rights of man and of the citizen. “Here we are not born equal in terms of access to care, it is not normal. We ask the municipalities to compensate for the shortcomings of a national system which has been more than undermined”, he laments. Because overcoming the shortages in an emergency, according to him, only further saturates the existing services.
“It doesn’t solve the problemabounds Déborah Bousquet. Today, it is impossible to have a doctor.” The two general practitioners of Axat, where she now lives, do not take new patients, ensuring their follow-up punctually. “Sometimes, to have an appointment, I have to go to Toulouse.” A situation that worries her, and which she believes discourages the installation of new homes. “There are many young people who would like to return to rural areas. But without access to healthcare, it is difficult to envisage.”