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This article addresses the organisation of the openings of telephone calls between nurses and porters at an acute-care hospital in French-speaking Switzerland. Initiated by the nurse, the calls are very brief and focus on the activity of producing and managing a transportation request. They have characteristics in common with service or assistance-request calls, which have been extensively studied in conversation analysis literature. In this case, however, the calls involve employees of a single institution who are moreover in regular contact but work in different departments. The article contributes to conversation analysis research on telephone call openings, with observations on the organisation of the summons, the connection and the response, as well as the caller’s first turn including the transition into the business of the call.