CHU Toulouse is preparing for the "wave" of coronavirus patients

• This Friday, the former Midi-Pyrénées region is even less affected than other parts of France by the coronavirus.
• The Toulouse CHU is however recording a significant increase in the number of cases and is preparing for the future spread of the epidemic.

On Wednesday, the first person died of coronavirus at the Toulouse University Hospital: an 84-year-old woman with already fragile health, according to hospital officials from the Pink City. This Friday morning, eight patients, aged 41 to 80 years but with the average age of sixty years, were hospitalized in intensive care because of Covid-19. Five other patients were in intensive care and 17 in standard hospitalization.

Even if, within the greater Occitania region, Midi-Pyrénées is less affected this weekend than its neighbor in Languedoc-Roussillon, the epidemic is spreading rapidly. "There is clearly an acceleration in recent days and in the last 24 hours," said Pierre Delobel, head of the infectious and tropical diseases department at the Toulouse University Hospital this Friday afternoon.

More and more respiratory distress patients

"The situation is getting tense," continues Vincent Bounes, director of the Samu de la Haute-Garonne. Typically, 30 patients are admitted to the CHU daily for respiratory distress. There, we will reach two or three times this total. "

Director General of the CHU, Marc Penaud assures him: “The hospital staff are extraordinary. Everyone is preparing to undergo this wave over time with an exceptional mobilization. The administrative managers left their offices to join their teams. And the Toulouse doctors had more time to prepare than their Italian, Spanish or even those from the Grand-Est region.

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And if the hospital will of course continue to accommodate emergencies outside the coronavirus, non-essential surgical procedures have been deprogrammed. "Today, we have 400 beds dedicated to the Covid-19, distributed approximately 50-50 between Purpan and Rangueil," Marc Penaud explains. This capacity can be extended to 740 next week. In intensive care, we have 83 beds in normal times and we can quickly go to 195 and more than 300 ventilated patients with ventilator. "

56 dedicated centers in Haute-Garonne by Monday

The CHU works in conjunction with the entire medical sector in Midi-Pyrénées. "With the private sector in the Toulouse basin, there are at least a hundred additional resuscitation beds that can easily be mobilized," assures Vincent Bounes. By Monday, in Haute-Garonne, 56 dedicated centers (including 15 in Toulouse) will be able to receive people with symptoms of coronavirus. Within the CHU, “1,000 staff” from other departments have been trained for the past two weeks to deal with the epidemic.

According to management, many retired doctors or members of paramedical professions have offered their help in the region. They must be contacted via a specialized application. Medical students have joined the telephone switchboards of the number dedicated to Covid-19 and the 15. "That's 60 people who answer, this must be the biggest total in France," says Vincent Bounes.

Mask stocks "for at least 15 days, three weeks"

What about equipment, when the scarcity of masks irritates the population? "We have benefited in recent days from a very broad mobilization of public authorities and private companies which give us surgical masks and FFP2," answers Marc Penaud. We will have the stocks needed to guarantee the protection of patients and staff for at least 15 days, three weeks. Gloves are not a concern. There are other materials whose stocks and production are monitored: protective glasses and overcoats. "

Now there remains the big unknown: the number of patients requiring hospitalization to come. "We dread a substantial wave, perhaps clipped and less than in other regions, but we expect it to be significant," says Pierre Delobel. The containment measures could produce their effects "within two or three weeks" before "an inflection of the curve during April", he hopes.

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Except that nothing is certain, as the specialist in infectious and tropical diseases recognizes, who quotes a study carried out by the epidemiologists of Inserm with a median hypothesis (a patient infects 2.2 other people on average) and high ( it infects just over three people on average). In the first case, the CHU should absorb the shock. In the second, the deal will be much more complicated.

“For a patient in intensive care, there will be three in a traditional hospital. Beyond 300 or 400 patients in intensive care, we can find ourselves saturated. In Toulouse, as in most parts of the world, the fight against the Covid-19 has barely begun.

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