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An Airbus A310 MedEvac of the German Armed Forces
Photo: Henning Kaiser / dpa
It is a new level of Corona official assistance: Due to the threat of overloading the health system in some regions, the Air Force is now helping with the distribution of patients within Germany.
From Friday afternoon onwards, the armed forces are to take part in the transfer of intensive care patients in the corona pandemic with a special aircraft.
According to information from the dpa news agency, an Airbus A310 MedEvac was supposed to land at the Bavarian airport in Memmingen at 2 p.m. and fly seriously ill people to Münster-Osnabrück in North Rhine-Westphalia.
The arrival of the machine was planned for the early evening.
Fast transport capacities with airplanes are to be used in order to be able to fly intensive care patients to regions with free capacities in the event of regional congestion in hospitals.
The Air Force has two aircraft ready for the relief mission.
This includes the Airbus A310 MedEvac, as well as a converted special machine, the surveillance aircraft A319OH.
Two places for intensive treatment were built into this.
An A400M MedEvac is also stationed in Wunstorf (Lower Saxony).
NRW is preparing for intensive care patients from other federal states
As part of the so-called clover leaf system, Covid 19 patients should also be able to be distributed nationwide if hospitals are threatened with collapse in individual regions.
According to a catalog of criteria of the intensive care medicine association Divi, transferring patients with other illnesses is only planned in exceptional cases.
The concept was launched in spring 2020 under the impression of the first corona wave.
The NRW state government wants to postpone planned operations in hospitals to accept corona patients from other federal states.
The cabinet wanted to adopt a corresponding regulation in a special session on Friday morning, as the State Chancellery announced.
In the Düsseldorf state parliament, according to dpa information, a necessary change to the Infection Protection and Authorization Act is to be voted on Friday so that the regulation can come into force.
So far, the law does not provide a legal basis for admitting patients from outside.
»The situation in Germany is serious.
For us as North Rhine-Westphalia, it goes without saying that we will also show solidarity with other federal states, "said the deputy Prime Minister of North Rhine-Westphalia Joachim Stamp (FDP) in the morning.
asc / dpa
