Forty-eight patients from the Grand Est coronavirus will be transferred this weekend by medical trains to hospitals in New Aquitaine.
This convoy will be the largest evacuation since the start of the pandemic. But by Mr. Laforcade's own admission, other, even more significant transfers could take place elsewhere. Twenty people severely affected by the coronavirus were transported to Pays de la Loire on Thursday.
Medicalized TGV: 20 patients evacuated from the Grand-Est to the Pays de la Loire
"In total with those of today, we will have received in 3 days 54 patients," said Michel Laforcade, director general of ARS during a telephone press point. "Very early this morning, we were asked to make an extra effort," he added shortly after the arrival in Bordeaux by military aircraft of six patients from Mulhouse and Colmar directed to intensive care services in the metropolitan area. Bordeaux, the second medical evacuation for the Nouvelle-Aquitaine region, after an initial transfer of six patients last Saturday.
Limoges, La Rochelle, Bayonne, Pau, Bordeaux…
For the other 48 expected, "the transport will be a priori Sunday through two medical trains," said Mr. Laforcade. According to the prefecture of the Grand Est region, the two TGVs will leave from Mulhouse and Nancy on Sunday.
Upon arrival, patients will be dispatched to ten establishments in the region: the other two teaching hospitals in Limoges and Poitiers and the hospitals of La Rochelle, Bayonne, Pau, the Robert Piqué army training hospital, near Bordeaux, (which already welcomed 3 patients on Friday) as well as the hospitals of Libourne, Angoulême, Niort and the private clinic of Bordeaux Nord.
The journey has been organized so that there is then a maximum of one hour of transport by ambulance from the station to the place of hospitalization.
The hope of "not too late outings"
“These are transferable patients […] not the ones who pose the most problems, but patients who often correspond to the beginnings of resuscitation which start under good auspices or the end of resuscitation which augur not too late discharges”, detailed Mr. Laforcade.
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For health authorities, "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. It is targeting places where we have the highest percentage of places, including it may be in private clinics or other ", this week described Daniel Habold, director of public health at the Regional Health Agency New Aquitaine during an audio conference.
The Nouvelle-Aquitaine region, which is currently among the least affected by the epidemic, has "critical care" (including resuscitation, intensive and continuous care) of 1,640 beds, of which 569 are available.