Paris (AFP)
We had to go slowly, tame the mistrust for this white medicine: "Why are you coming to contaminate me?". Today, residents of the home for immigrant workers come to get masks and gel and readily accept the consultation offered to them.
The mobile diagnostic and screening unit (UMDD), placed on a sidewalk in the north of Paris, between the peripheral and the suburbs, intends to identify volunteers contaminated by the coronavirus among a population often passed under the radar, to direct them towards monitoring medical and possible quarantine.
Malian, Senegalese and Mauritanian workers, the most represented, first wondered what these white, gloved and masked blouses came to tamper with, at the foot of their residence.
"I never talk about Covid or screening, especially at the start: it would have been frowned upon," says Dr. François Teboul, a former emergency doctor who remembers the distrust in the corridors when he went around, the first day. "I suggest checking blood pressure, diabetes ... It took two weeks to build trust," he says.
Set up on April 21 in a prefabricated bungalow, the unit is now installed in its landscape of dismal bars and disenchanted roundabouts. Friday morning, four consultations are scheduled and a few men wait outside the door.
- 24 suspected cases -
The initiative - which has already made it possible to receive nearly 160 patients, including 24 "suspect" cases having undergone a positive PCR test - was born from companies supplying material (Loxam), medical equipment (Thermoflash, Loxamed) and teleconsultation (Teledok platform, by Dr Teboul). Their leaders get involved on a voluntary basis.
"The Paris City Hall immediately followed our idea, to bring health units closer to the most vulnerable populations," explains Arnaud Molinié, president of Loxamed.
At the entrance, Nabil El Khedri hands them a surgical mask and shows how to wash their hands for a long time with hydroalcoholic gel. To each, the young general manager of Loxam offers to see the doctor. If the visitor already has an appointment, he introduces him with an FFP2 mask (more efficient) in the second room, for a teleconsultation.
It's Tidjane, 37, who feels tired, he explains to the screen. Does the doctor check weight, blood pressure and temperature, then drop down his questions: cough, sore throat, nausea, itching?
Everything is fine. Tidjane leaves with recommendations and a kit of three masks in colored wax, sewn by the collective "Sur le fil", and a guide to good practice.
Between two passages, the two rooms are ventilated and the furniture disinfected. "Many have no social security coverage, the fact that we are there all the time has helped build trust," notes Nabil. "This pilot experience allows us to assess fears and blockages."
Haroun, 27, "paperless", he specifies, goes next to fill his vial with gel. Like Adel, a 58-year-old Palestinian man who fell ill from Covid-19 in mid-March.
- "Sad and disgusting" -
"It is a sad, disgusting disease," he says, telling of the nights of fever, the oppression on the chest, the fear of dying and immeasurable fatigue.
From this nightmare, Adel draws a survivor's wisdom. As such, he walks the hallways of the foyer, not always well received. "Get out, it's not your job," shouted the old men sitting in the hall to whom he recommended wearing a mask and avoiding the prayer hall - in the middle of Ramadan.
"Now it's closed, but everyone is praying on the landing," he said, opening his tiny studio where a single bed and a TV fit in.
The residence has 400 dwellings for 600 inhabitants, not far from double in reality with day / night shifts to sleep.
After these three weeks of testing, the Paris City Hall would be ready to deploy new units, says Arnaud Molinié. And several large companies are interested, when it comes to welcoming their casual workers from Monday.
© 2020 AFP