INTERVIEW
Since March 6, the government has called for greater solidarity so that the 21,000 health professionals who make up the health reserve are mobilized to help medical personnel in the face of the influx of coronavirus patients. Doctors, nurses, paramedics, retirees and those without a job have put on their white coats to help. Among them, the LREM deputy from Charente-Maritime and emergency physician, Thomas Mesnier.
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At the microphone of Europe 1, the one who defines himself as "emergency doctor above all" tells how this mobilization is organized and his return to the Angoulême hospital: "I put on the blouse last Monday and I occupies patients presenting to the emergency room. We set up a second emergency department dedicated to the coronavirus in addition to the classic emergency department because the other pathologies continue and we must take care of people who have heart attacks, strokes ", he details.
"Caregivers united, committed and united"
"We have the necessary equipment, we must be careful because we must ensure the quantity of hydroalcoholic gels, masks that we have but everything is going well," he says, adding that New Aquitaine has been able to take the time to get organized "while waiting for the epidemic wave, which should arrive in the coming days, to affect us".
Faced with calls from caregivers and doctors who deplored having been sent to the front without the necessary equipment, notably lack of masks and beds, Thomas Mesniers ensures that daily messages from the general directorate of health are sent daily to the inform deliveries of the various protective tools. "The masks are arriving, a very, very large number have been ordered by Olivier Véran", indicates this close to the Minister of Health who announced, on Saturday, that more '' a billion masks had been ordered, notably from China.
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But it is "true that masks were lacking, especially in city medicine at the beginning. Some are still missing, but they are in the process of being sent," he admits before adding: "I think it is important to first deliver those who were in the most affected regions and it is clear that we must show solidarity. " His hospital received, Sunday, two patients in intensive care arriving from Mulhouse by train. "I think we have to be absolutely united in this ordeal," he concludes, describing "caregivers united, committed and united to face this epidemic. This is really what marks most every day."