- The Nancy and Mulhouse stations welcome the first of the 36 patients from the Grand Est who must be transferred by two medical TGVs to New Aquitaine.
- This evacuation will be the largest since the "wave" swept across eastern France.
- "It is necessary to free beds, it is absolutely necessary to give air to the resuscitation services", explains the head of emergencies of the Metz hospital center.
Placed under high surveillance, the stations of Nancy and Mulhouse welcomed, this Sunday morning, the 36 patients in intensive care of the Great East who must be transferred by two medical TGV to New Aquitaine. The two trains left at around 10:45 a.m.
This evacuation to a still relatively unspoiled region of the coronavirus epidemic will be the most significant since the "wave" swept over eastern France.
In Nancy, where 24 patients boarded, the first two arrived in ambulances around 7.20am. They were immediately transferred by medical staff protected from head to toe inside the station, placed under guard, found AFP journalists. A sea of ambulances from the Samu and firefighters then took over.
Unclog hospitals in the Grand Est
In Mulhouse, where another medicalized TGV received 12 patients, six of them left the field hospital installed by the armies around 7 a.m. and a seventh, the emergencies of the neighboring civilian hospital to reach the station too, according to an AFP photographer. The first embarkation on the train was made at 7:35 am.
These evacuations aim to relieve the hospitals of the Grand Est, one of the regions most heavily affected by the epidemic with, on Saturday, 3,777 people hospitalized, including 786 in intensive care, and 757 deaths.
Evacuations also to Germany, Switzerland, Luxembourg
“We must free up beds, it is absolutely essential to give air to the resuscitation services. We are still in a continuous increase in the number of patients ”, exhorted the head of emergencies of the regional hospital center (CHR) of Metz, François Braun.
Our file on the coronavirus
Patients from Mulhouse must be distributed in the afternoon from Poitiers station to hospitals in this city, La Rochelle, Niort and Angoulême and those who left Nancy, from Bordeaux and Bayonne stations to establishments in these cities but also in Libourne and Pau. They are patients "in a state of being transferred, without complications in progress […] They are always intubated, ventilated, asleep and they do not need to be put on their stomachs to breathe", according to the doctor Braun.
Dozens of patients have already been evacuated in recent days from the Grand Est by civil and military means, land and air, to hospitals in other French regions but also in Germany, Switzerland and Luxembourg. In particular during a very first medical TGV transfer on Thursday between the Grand Est and hospitals in the Pays-de-Loire.
Safer evacuation TGVs
On board the trains - called Chardon 2 and Chardon 3 - fitted out as a rolling hospital, "four patients will be installed in each car with, for each of the cars, an anesthetist or a senior emergency doctor, an intern, a nurse anesthetist, three nurses, possibly a logistician, "the Ministry of Solidarity and Health told AFP.
The TGV has the advantage of being “particularly stable compared to other vectors and ultimately particularly safe. We have more room, more teams inside, more equipment, ”explained Dr. Braun on France Inter on Saturday.
"Great welcoming movement"
With 490 hospitalizations in progress recorded on Saturday, including 127 people in intensive care or intensive care, New Aquitaine is among the regions least affected by the epidemic. According to figures released Friday, 188 resuscitation beds are available on 561 places, a margin of maneuver which allows him to participate in this "big welcome movement" even if, here too, we expect saturation of services.
"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 hits us [in New Aquitaine]", explained Michel on Friday Laforcade, Director General of the Regional Health Agency (ARS) Nouvelle-Aquitaine.
"The war, we will probably win it on the question of resuscitation beds, with our capacity at the level of the national territory to use well, in an intelligent, well coordinated way, our means in resuscitation, by supporting each other with the within a region and between regions ”, estimated the general director of the CHR of Metz, Marie-Odile Saillard.
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