After Marseille (Bouches-du-Rhône), Paris. "Covid-19: Cosem is setting up screening today ( editor's note Wednesday )", writes on its LinkedIn page Dr Daniel Dimermanas, director general of this association which has six health centers in Paris. As a new act of disobedience, a message sent to the authorities who still limit the use of coronavirus tests. "We're not snipers, it's just common sense, now we have to go," he explained.
From this Wednesday, Cosem, a Parisian institution created 75 years ago, will carry out screening tests for Covid-19 in the premises of its Miromesnil (6, avenue César-Caire, Paris VIIIe) and Atlas (15 , rue de l'Atlas, Paris XIX). "We organized two lines of patients outside the centers," explains the director, a trained dentist. One normal queue and one for patients with suspicious symptoms. "
Patients at risk fill in before entering a questionnaire and nurses take their temperature. These patients then see a doctor and are therefore screened. But unlike other initiatives, “our doctors will follow positive patients if necessary, thanks in particular to the telemedicine platform that we have just opened. And for serious cases, we will call 15. ”
A free test for patients with a complementary
The Cosem director expects “500 to 600 tests per day, but that will undoubtedly increase. We are there in support of hospitals, to prevent them from being overwhelmed, he insists, citing as an example China, Taiwan, South Korea, Germany [which] massively test the population and it works. This decision also echoes the mobile screening center installed at Porte de Versailles from this Thursday and managed by Cerballiance laboratories.
For its initiative, Cosem has teamed up with the Cerba laboratory which provides tests and analyzes, the results of which are known after 48 hours, a little more than at the hospital, "but the times will become shorter as time goes by. as you go, ”says Daniel Dimermanas. As this center does not charge excess fees, the test will not cost patients one euro as soon as they have complementary health care.
To avoid contamination and crowd movements, the center has set up security guards outside its centers. And everyone, without exception, entering the premises is given a mask "whose wearing is compulsory", further specifies the director to cut short any criticism. Because here, no hardware problem. "All of our staff have protections in sufficient numbers," says the director, who insists: "We are just united. Solidarity with the hospital, solidarity with the population who, in addition to being confined, do not have to worry about their health. "