Strasbourg (AFP)
A medical TGV, which must evacuate twenty patients infected with the coronavirus in order to relieve hospitals in the French region of Alsace completely saturated, arrived Wednesday evening in Strasbourg (northeast).
The train entered around 19:30 local time at the station. Several people dressed in white and lifeguard jackets came out.
This TGV must transport patients Thursday morning to hospitals in the Pays-de-la-Loire region (west of France), according to the Ministry of Health.
In each car, a medical team made up of an anesthesiologist-resuscitator, an intern, a nurse anesthetist and three nurses will be present, according to the Directorate General of Health (DGS).
In total, around fifty people, carers and logisticians, are present on board, according to the same source.
Alsatian hospitals, submerged for several weeks by a massive and incessant influx of patients, are in a critical situation.
In order to relieve them, several patient evacuation operations were conducted by an Airbus from the French army to other hospitals in France. Others were organized by helicopter to neighboring countries, notably in Germany.
A military field hospital deployed this week in front of the Mulhouse hospital to care for around 30 of its patients was visited on Wednesday by President Emmanuel Macron.
The coronavirus has caused 1,331 deaths in hospitals since the beginning of the epidemic in France and 2,827 patients were on Wednesday evening in intensive care, announced Wednesday evening the director general of health, Jérôme Salomon.
© 2020 AFP