Mulhouse (AFP)
The deployment of a military field hospital in Mulhouse, which will help unclog the civilian hospital in the city saturated by patients with coronavirus, was started Thursday with the marking of the ground.
With 30 beds and a hundred medical personnel, these military resuscitation (EMR) elements promise to be much more than a simple "field hospital", underlines the Armed Forces Health Service (SSA).
"We do not have an exact date for the end of installation, but everything indicates that it will be ready before March 27," said the army ministry.
For the time being, the services of the city of Mulhouse have sent some 240 linear meters of barriers to delimit an area the size of a small football field in a parking lot of the Emile-Muller civilian hospital, already surrounded by bands plastic to prevent access.
"The installation works of the military hospital announced by the president of the Republic started" with the support of the city of Mulhouse, confirmed a source close to the file.
- Heavy structures -
The MREs themselves are being built from scratch near Orléans, at the Directorate for the Supply of Health Products of the Armed Forces, with the staff of the Medical Regiment.
This medical unit, initially tented, will bring together five modules of six beds each, all equipped with resuscitation equipment to ventilate and intubate the patients.
The medical team of the armed forces will be made up of anesthetists-resuscitators, nurse anesthetists-resuscitators, epidemiologists, nurses and nursing assistants, details the SSA, that is to say "a hundred staff".
"These are heavy structures, for patients in serious condition, with logistics adapted to infectious diseases, such as dressing and undressing areas to protect staff: it is not just a tent with beds, "said the Ministry of the Armed Forces. Hence, according to him, the time required to assemble this structure.
- Resilience -
Especially since this type of unit does not exist as such within the armed forces. "In external operations (Opex), we do not need structures strictly dedicated to resuscitation, without surgery," explains the SSA.
The future military mobile resuscitation unit, on the other hand, "comes from our expertise in the rapid deployment of modular infrastructures, with state-of-the-art equipment", he adds. "It's the same principle as in opex: once the structure is conditioned, it gets started."
In addition to this military resuscitation unit intended to relieve hospitals in the Grand Est region hit hard by the epidemic, "five military hospitals have been identified to support with places reserved for patients with Covid-19", which represents 117 beds including 40 intensive care beds, said Wednesday evening the Secretary of State for the Armies Geneviève Darrieussecq.
"The SSA contributes to the nation's resilience at the height of its means. But our reason for being is the medical support of soldiers in operations," observes the SSA, which represents only 1% of public healthcare, with 2,300 doctors and 1,750 hospital beds.
The announcement of the deployment of a field hospital in Mulhouse was made Monday by Emmanuel Macron during a televised speech.
On Wednesday, an Air Force A330 equipped by the SSA had already evacuated six patients from hospitals in Mulhouse and Colmar to military hospitals in Marseille and Toulon.
© 2020 AFP