The image of a Frenchman arriving from Mulhouse by helicopter on Saturday at the University Hospital of Friborg has appeared on all television channels. But he did not raise any protest on the German side. Quite the contrary. Why refuse intensive care beds in Germany when there are still available?
"In this human tragedy, we wholeheartedly help our French neighbors and friends," said the management of the Friborg hospital. “French colleagues no longer have artificial respirators. As long as we can respond to a request for medical help, we will, ”said management.
VIDEO. A nurse in Mulhouse: "It's a horrible situation, we have to sort out the patients"
In the midst of the coronavirus crisis, this initiative is not isolated. Like Friborg, other German hospitals have accepted to receive patients from Alsace, such as Heidelberg, Mannheim or Ulm. The boss of the great Baden-Württemberg region, the cradle of the German automobile industry, has promised to reserve beds for patients in the Great East. The head of Rhineland-Palatinate, Malu Dreyer, also offered ten places in intensive care for French patients.
"We will only win together"
In the small border and francophile region of the Saarland, the Minister-President was very clear: "I immediately make available, to the extent of our possibilities and capacities, beds equipped with respiratory assistance for French patients infected with coronavirus in an emergency, ”said Tobias Hans. "My friend Jean Rottner (Editor's note: the president of the Grand-Est regional council) and I agree: we will only win the fight against the coronavirus," says the boss of the Saarland, a region that has French is a compulsory foreign language at school.
This surge of solidarity sweeps away Jean Messiha's criticisms of an alleged German selfishness in this crisis. "Dear Germany with whom we form a couple, of which we are, thanks to the progressives, the eternal cuckolds", had criticized on Twitter this member of the office of the National Rally, accusing the Germans of "requisitioned stocks and production of masks of the subsidiary of 3M ”.
Germany requisitioned inventories and production of masks from the Rhineland-based subsidiary of 3M.
This site is intended to supply all of Europe.
Dear Germany, with whom we are a couple, of whom we are, thanks to the progressives, the eternal cocus. # COVID19
Solidarity across the Rhine is all the more remarkable since our neighbors are also preparing to respond to a peak in intensive care patients, expected in April. "It's calm before the storm," says an emergency doctor at a hospital in Berlin, who wished to remain anonymous. Germany counted this Monday a hundred deaths against 560 in France.
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To provide for the needs, the government of Angela Merkel announced a doubling of the number of places in intensive care. The Minister of Health has ordered 16,500 artificial respiration devices from the two German manufacturers, Dräger and Löwenstein Medical.
If Germany is very well equipped, with 28,000 beds in intensive care, including 25,000 with respiratory assistance, it is sorely lacking in personnel and masks. "No one is really prepared to respond to such a pandemic," insists health economist Boris Augurzky of the RWI Public Research Institute. "We too are bound to improvise," he adds.
The whole country is preparing for an absolute emergency to deal with the "most serious crisis we have known since the Second World War", in the words of the Chancellor. The authorities have already requisitioned hotels and gymnasiums to anticipate the first wave of patients in intensive care. The city of Berlin plans to transform the exhibition center into a hospital to accommodate at least 1,000 patients.