Pointe-a-Pitre (AFP)

At the University Hospital of Guadeloupe, an island in the Antilles which is currently experiencing an outbreak of the Covid epidemic, 40% of the beds are now occupied by Covid patients, and the morgue is saturated, according to hospital management.

"40% of the beds are occupied by Covid patients," Gérard Cotellon, the director general of the CHU told AFP on Wednesday.

"149 of our medicine beds are dedicated to Covid patients. Only 5 are still empty," he adds.

The 46 open intensive care beds are occupied and emergencies register up to 80 passages per day, for the Covid only.

“Everyone has Covid, even those whose specialty is far from this type of pathology,” recalls Gérard Cotellon.

The pediatric service also welcomes patients affected by the virus.

"We have some 5 children hospitalized and 5 or 6 mothers", details the management of the CHU, which indicates to be mounted "up to 9 children" in recent days.

A total of 8 departments were closed to accommodate resuscitation beds.

And that promises to be insufficient.

"The other establishments will have to open sheave beds", notes Gérard Cotellon.

In the Guadeloupe hospital, like a few days earlier in Martinique, the morgue is also saturated.

"We have 15 places plus a refrigerated fiery chapel which can accommodate around thirty bodies", explains Gérard Cotellon, under the control of the CHU forensic scientist Tania Foucan.

"The Paris firefighters are opening 4 modules of 12 places for us", he announces and a refrigerated container has just been installed to cope with the rate of deaths, more than 15 per day just at the CHU, but "that does not count deaths at home ".

According to local media, funeral services are also starting to be overloaded.

In addition, an Air Caraïbes plane must evacuate eight Covid patients in respiratory distress Wednesday evening to France, due to the saturation of critical care beds.

A patient with Covid-19 in the intensive care unit of the Abymes hospital, August 6, 2021 in Pointe-à-Pitre, Guadeloupe Cedrick Isham CALVADOS AFP / Archives

"It is a strategy that we have used in metropolitan France during the other waves," Lionel Lamhaut, an emergency physician from the Samu in Paris, who coordinates the evacuation, told reporters on Wednesday.

The difference "is the distance and the aeronautical constraints" that are the access to electricity for the equipment and the oxygen on board.

"The level of care for our patients is extremely high. It is almost similar to that of the ongoing resuscitation. The care will be continued: they will have all their treatments, and they may need blood tests if necessary, and there is there is a laboratory, an ultrasound machine ", and for 2 patients, there are" two nurses and a doctor planned ", added Mr. Lamhaut.

Last week there were already six medical evacuations from Martinique to France.

© 2021 AFP