ty-eight of them in the world, with doctors and security specialists.
in crisis situations. Interview with Arnaud Vaissié, Co- founder, Chairman and CEO of International SOS.
Class & Relax Lifestyle Magazine: What is your response capability in the event of a crisis?
Class & Relax Lifestyle Magazine: Arnaud Vaissié, how did International SOS come about?
Arnaud Vaissié: It is fast and efficient worldwide. At the very beginning of the covid 19 crisis, it was International SOS that repatriated the French people from Wuhan on behalf of the French government. We also managed the vaccination programme for French people around the world, set up by the government. We carried out the civil evacuations from the Carribean and Tahiti, with Air Caraïbes - French bee, of highly affected patients: there were up to twelve people in a major resuscitation in the same plane, which is considerable. Class & Relax Lifestyle Magazine: Prevention to face future crises is probably an important part of your group's strategy... Arnaud Vaissié: Yes, absolutely. We help our clients to set up prevention plans, which are essential in crisis mana- gement, both for the safety of their employees and for medical reasons. Outside the crisis context, this involves check-ups and the provision of medical care for non-com- municable diseases. Last year, we handled two million cases, 85% of which were resolved simply by a call to one of our centres. The other 15% resulted in hospitalisation or evacuation. Class & Relax Lifestyle Magazine: Prevention is not always possible. To take a recent example, a coup d'état happens in Burkina Faso, how do you react? Arnaud Vaissié: In a case like this, we send a crisis mana- gement team, made up of doctors, nurses, telecommuni- cation specialists and security officers, to quickly set up a local assistance centre. We have a network of suppliers in each country made up of security agents, travel agencies and aircraft manufacturers, which will enable us to inter- vene. We arrive with our equipment and money, so that we can be autonomous. Often, money is not available during a crisis. The longest and most difficult and painful case we had to deal with was the 2004 tsunami, which affected three countries simultaneously where we inter- vened: Thailand, Sri Lanka and Indonesia. For a year and a half, we managed the search for missing persons on behalf of the French government and other countries.
Arnaud Vaissié: International SOS was born in 1985, in Singapore, from the friendship between two people: it is a co-foundation between my childhood friend, Dr Pascal Rey-Herme and myself. We have known each other since we were four years old, and went to primary school toge-
ther and then to the Lycée Henri IV in Paris. He had beco- me a doctor, sent to Indonesia to create the post of embassy doctor. I myself was a banker in the United States. Pascal decided to create a medical service for companies and their employees, which would be somew- here between a hospital and private medicine, and we joi- ned forces: International SOS was born!
Class & Relax Lifestyle Magazine: What is the mode of operation of International SOS ?
Arnaud Vaissié: We sell subscriptions to our clients, many large global groups but also SMEs, in order to give them access at any time to health and safety information on what is happening in the world, 24 hours a day, like a media. For example, ten days before the start of the war in Ukraine, we advised our clients to leave their expa- triates, because we felt that the situation was becoming dangerous. Then we provide assistance services, through centres that also operate 24 hours a day: there are twen-
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