The evacuation of coronavirus patients from Grand Est to Nouvelle-Aquitaine will accelerate this weekend, while Île-de-France is near saturation. After ten days of national confinement which has just been extended until April 15, France continues to organize to try to relieve hospitals in the regions most affected by the epidemic.

"It will increase, the peak of the wave is scheduled for the end of next week," says for example Dr. Michèle Granier, president of the medical commission of the hospital of Corbeil-Essonnes, in the Paris suburbs. Other experts expect a peak expected between April 5 and 15.

"Even intubated ventilated, it degrades suddenly and we do not understand what is happening", loose Cathy Le Gac, resuscitation nurse at the Beaujon hospital in Clichy (Hauts-de-Seine): s' there are a lot of healings, the coronavirus continues to sow terror, between these macabre flashes, the seniors hit hard in the Ehpad or the 16-year-old Ile-de-France who recently succumbed to it.

Resilience Operation

As part of the Resilience operation launched by Emmanuel Macron, the patient transfers initiated this week are intensifying, with the implementation this weekend of the largest medical evacuation of Covid-19 patients on French territory.

Forty patients must be transferred from the Grand Est to New Aquitaine, announced the Regional Health Agency (ARS) of the latter. In detail, four patients are expected on Saturday in hospitals in Poitiers and Limoges, and Sunday, 36 others will arrive on two medical TGVs, to be distributed in a dozen cities.

New Aquitaine has 1,640 beds in "critical care" (including resuscitation, intensive and continuous care), of which 569 are available. This situation contrasts with that of the Île-de-France, which is increasingly tense: out of 1,500 places in the intensive care units in the Paris region, 1,300 beds are currently occupied.

In places, like in Seine-Saint-Denis, hospitals are already saturated. "We are in the process of switching to war medicine," says a nurse. No "sorting" of patient is yet mentioned, "but we know that patients over 80 years are not a priority" ...

Potential shortage of resuscitation drugs

Measure of "anticipation", the Director General of Health, Jérôme Salomon, announced Friday a first evacuation during the weekend of fifteen patients from Ile-de-France resuscitation towards establishments in the Center-Val de Loire region.

Caregivers also fear a "potential shortage of resuscitation drugs to come," according to Professor Bruno Riou, AP-HP crisis medical director (hospitals in the Paris region).

The material is also at the heart of a growing boom, embodied by a collective of caregivers, already at the origin of complaints against Édouard Philippe and the former Minister of Health Agnès Buzyn, and who claimed contracts with the government on Friday orders for masks and coronavirus screening tests for the last three months.

The Prime Minister must give a press conference on Saturday with the current Minister of Health Olivier Véran, and promised a "transparent" point of the health situation, in particular the shortage of masks or the question of tests.

With AFP

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