Bordeaux (AFP)
A medical TGV leaving Friday morning from Strasbourg with 24 Covid-19 patients arrived at the end of the day in Bordeaux, after a stop in Poitiers, for treatment in establishments in New Aquitaine, a region less affected than the Grand- East.
Eleven patients were landed in Bordeaux shortly after 6:00 p.m., seven of whom were to be sent to the intensive care units of two CHU sites. The other four were to join the hospitals of Dax and Mont-de-Marsan, in the Landes.
In the afternoon, 13 patients had been taken care of at Poitiers station to be transported to the city's teaching hospital (7 patients) and to hospital establishments in Limoges (2), La Rochelle (2) and Niort (2 ), according to the Regional Health Agency (ARS) of Nouvelle-Aquitaine.
These arrivals bring to 84 the number of patients admitted to New Aquitaine since the beginning of the transfer of patients from Covid-19, intended to relieve regions in tension, especially the Grand-Est.
This region is one of the main epidemics of the coronavirus in France and hospitals in the region, particularly in the Haut-Rhin, have been on the verge of saturation for several weeks. Faced with this situation, multiple patient evacuations were carried out by ambulance, helicopter, plane or even tourist coach.
The ARS said Tuesday that more than 200 patients from the Grand Est had already been evacuated to other French regions less affected by the epidemic as well as to Germany, Switzerland, Luxembourg and Austria.
This transfer takes place the day after a journey in the opposite direction by nursing staff from Nouvelle-Aquitaine to the Grand-Est, in order to relieve their colleagues. These 17 caregivers - anesthetists and resuscitation doctors, palliative care doctors and nurse anesthetists - joined Mulhouse in the Girondins de Bordeaux coach.
The first neo-Aquitaine "respite team" to strengthen the establishments in the Grand-Est returned on Friday, according to the ARS.
As of Friday morning at Strasbourg station, the accompanying nursing staff had started to board the sick, one by one, from 7:30 a.m. The patients, asleep and transported in shell mattresses, were installed in six classic TGV cars, slightly reconfigured for the transport of stretchers, with four patients per car.
"The transport conditions are long, difficult and require a clinical state of the patients that we say + stable +, which will not normally pose any problem until the arrival", explained doctor Jean-Michel Dindart, hospital practitioner of the CHU from Bordeaux and deputy train manager.
These patients come from hospitals in Strasbourg, Colmar, Saverne, Sélestat and Haguenau.
bur-bdx-elm-bpe / pjl / cbn
© 2020 AFP