Bordeaux (AFP)

Fourteen patients with Covid-19 were evacuated Friday from the Grand Est to Bordeaux, Poitiers and Limoges, on the eve of a major transfer operation expected over the weekend throughout New Aquitaine, for the time being relatively spared by "the wave".

In the afternoon, six patients from Mulhouse and Colmar were first evacuated to Bordeaux on board an A330 medical aircraft from the Air Force departing from Istres (Bouches-du-Rhône ).

For the fourth time since mid-March, the armies have therefore deployed the airborne medical evacuation device called Morpheus (acronym for "Resuscitation module for patients with high elongation evacuation") to evacuate patients with Covid-19 to departments less affected by the epidemic.

These evacuations are part of the military operation Resilience announced Wednesday by President Emmanuel Macron in order to support the French faced with the epidemic of coronavirus.

Three of them were transported to the Bordeaux University Hospital, in intensive care, and three others to the Robert Piqué Army Training Hospital, near Bordeaux.

"Currently they are stable, it has made their transfer possible but they are in critical condition. They are intubated, ventilated. They all present with pneumonia in Covid", explained to the press Professor Matthieu Biais, head of the anesthesia department- resuscitation of the Bordeaux University Hospital.

All have a similar profile: "average age around 50, with overweight, high blood pressure, risk factors that are regularly found in this disease".

"These are six very heavy patients that we receive, to be able to save them, because if we do not do that, they will not have the capacity to be treated by these means on the Great East", underlined Daniel Habold, director of public health at the Nouvelle-Aquitaine regional health agency during a telephone press point on Friday morning.

- "Do not saturate" -

"It is the start of a great welcoming movement in the region" in the coming days, with "a certain number of rotations throughout New Aquitaine", summarized Daniel Habold.

Thus, the ARS announced Friday that 48 other patients from the Grand Est would be quickly transferred to ten hospitals in the region. Evacuations which started on Friday, for 8 patients, and will continue until Sunday.

According to an ARS press release, four patients have already arrived at the Poitiers CHU by plane from Colmar (on 2 medical flights) and four patients have been routed, on 2 flights also, to the Limoges CHU. Saturday, 4 other patients are expected at the end of the morning in these same two establishments, half dispatched to Poitiers and Limoges.

The 36 others will arrive on Sunday on two medicalized TGV before joining the hospitals of La Rochelle, Bayonne, Pau, the military training hospital Robert Piqué, near Bordeaux, (which already welcomed 3 patients on Friday) as well as Libourne, Angoulême, Niort and the private clinic in Bordeaux Nord. "One train will terminate at Poitiers and the other at Bayonne, with a stop at Bordeaux," said ARS in its press release.

Probable duration of their stay: 15 days or even 3 weeks.

"We also thought that welcoming them right away would allow us to get most of them out in good shape before most of the wave hit us" (in New Aquitaine), "said Friday. Michel Laforcade, Director General of ARS, during an audio conference.

After a first transfer last Saturday of six patients to Bordeaux, this major operation constitutes, at this stage, the largest medical evacuation of Covid-19 patients on French territory.

New Aquitaine has 1,640 beds in "critical care" (including resuscitation, intensive and continuous care), of which 569 are available.

Patients are referred there according to "very fine dispatching (...) on a case-by-case basis" to avoid overload, explained Daniel Habold this week in audio conference. "The idea is not to saturate too quickly, it is the trap in which Italy fell and Mulhouse because of the power of the wave".

burs-nal / pjl / cbn

© 2020 AFP