The evacuation by helicopter of patients with coronavirus to unclog hospitals in Ile-de-France continued on Thursday, the objective now being to transfer 150 patients out of the Paris region by this weekend, according to l 'Regional Health Agency (ARS).
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The massive patient transfer, which started on Wednesday, "is still underway and will continue in the coming hours and days," an AFS spokesperson told AFP, adding that the initial objective evacuation had been increased. “Between yesterday and tomorrow, we will have transferred around 120 patients. The ultimate goal is to evacuate 150 people by this weekend , " added the spokesperson - a target that includes, according to him, the 36 people evacuated on Wednesday by medicalized TGV to Rennes, Brest and Saint-Brieuc.
The ARS Ile-de-France had initially announced that it wanted to evacuate a hundred patients to establishments in the Center-Val de Loire, Normandy and the Pays de la Loire. The operation, which was to end on Thursday noon, aims to free up places in hospitals in the Paris region, which have reached saturation point due to the influx of coronavirus patients. Currently, the Ile-de-France region has 2,200 intensive care beds dedicated to Covid-19. The objective, according to the ARS, is to bring this number to at least 2,400 through the opening of beds.
Île-de-France was hit hard by the Covid-19 epidemic, with more than 9,600 people hospitalized, including 2,200 in intensive care. The virus killed 4,032 people in France.