The objective is to unclog the civilian hospital in the city, saturated by an increasing influx of patients from Covid-19. In Mulhouse (Haut-Rhin), the deployment of military resuscitation (EMR) elements began Thursday with the marking of the ground.
This additional equipment will have 30 beds and a hundred members of the nursing staff. However, it promises to be much more than a simple "field hospital", underlines the Armed Forces Health Service (SSA).
Emmanuel Macron announced his deployment Monday, during his televised address. Its installation "will begin this weekend", said the Minister of the Armed Forces, Florence Parly, on Twitter. She specifies, video in support, that "the logistical loading of the EMR is advancing and will soon be on its way to Mulhouse".
The logistical loading of the EMR (Military Resuscitation Element) is advancing and will soon be on its way to Mulhouse. The installation of the field hospital will begin this weekend. pic.twitter.com/s7WK28fnzD
- Florence Parly (@florence_parly) March 19, 2020City of Mulhouse services have routed some 240 linear meters of barriers to delimit an area the size of a small football field in a parking lot at the Emile-Muller civilian hospital, already surrounded by plastic strips to ban it access.
The future hospital will thus be set up a few tens of meters from the heliport and the emergencies of the civil establishment, taking advantage of its technical and medical infrastructure.
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The MREs themselves are being built from scratch near Orléans, at the Directorate for the Supply of Health Products of the Armed Forces, with the staff of the Medical Regiment.
This medical unit, initially tented, will bring together five modules of six beds each, all equipped with resuscitation equipment to ventilate and intubate the patients.
The medical team of the armed forces will be composed of anesthesiologists-resuscitators, nurse anesthetists-resuscitators, epidemiologists, nurses and nursing assistants, details the SSA, that is to say "a hundred staff".
At the Ministry of the Armed Forces, it is stressed that these are "heavy structures, for patients in serious condition, with logistics adapted to infectious diseases, such as dressing and undressing areas to protect personnel: it does not it's not just a tent with beds. ”
Hence the time required to assemble this structure. Especially since this type of unit does not exist as such within the armed forces. "In external operations (Opex), we do not need structures strictly dedicated to resuscitation, without surgery," explains the SSA.
Five military hospitals in support of civil structures
The future military mobile resuscitation unit, on the other hand, "comes from our expertise in the rapid deployment of modular infrastructure, with state-of-the-art equipment," adds the SSA. "It's the same principle as in opex: once the structure is conditioned, it gets started."
In addition to this military resuscitation unit intended to relieve hospitals in the Grand Est region, hit hard by the epidemic, "five military hospitals have been identified to provide support with places reserved for patients with Covid-19" , said Wednesday evening the Secretary of State for the Armies Geneviève Darrieussecq. This represents 117 beds, including 40 resuscitation beds.
“The SSA participates in the resilience of the Nation at the height of its means. But our raison d'être is the medical support of soldiers in operations, ”observes the Service, which represents only 1% of the public supply of care, with 2,300 doctors and 1,750 hospital beds.
On Wednesday, an Air Force A330 equipped by the SSA had already evacuated six patients from hospitals in Mulhouse and Colmar to military hospitals in Marseille and Toulon.
[# COVID19] Back in pictures on the engagement of the A330 Phoenix equipped with the "Morphée" kit. @Armee_de_lair @santearmees @Armees_Gouv https://t.co/lhOybKDmPF pic.twitter.com/SlXZqluez6
- Armed Staff (@EtatMajorFR) March 19, 2020