The epidemic is not weakening in the West Indies. New reinforcements of caregivers will be sent, Friday August 20, to Guadeloupe and Martinique, from where a dozen patients should be evacuated to the metropolis in the coming days, said Wednesday August 18 the Ministry of Health to the France Media Agency.
The airlift continues to relieve West Indian hospitals saturated with Covid-19 cases. “A little over 120” caregivers left on Tuesday for Guadeloupe and Martinique, and “Other reinforcements arrive on Friday”, always “Equitably distributed between the two islands”, according to the ministry.
These health professionals – whose number has not been specified – must ensure ” Succession “ of the 240 doctors, nurses and orderlies who arrived last week.
40% of beds occupied by Covid patients
At the Guadeloupe University Hospital Center, 40% of the beds are now occupied by Covid-19 patients, and the morgue is saturated, Gérard Cotellon, the director general of the CHU told AFP on Wednesday.
The 46 open intensive care beds are occupied and emergencies register up to 80 passages per day, for the Covid only. “Everyone has Covid, even those whose specialty is far from this type of pathology”, underlined Mr. Cotellon.
New medical evacuations to the metropolis are “Being organized for the weekend or the very beginning of next week”, in order to relieve congestion in the intensive care units of Pointe-à-Pitre and Fort-de-France.
The ministry is considering the transfer of eight patients by wide-body aircraft as part of the operation “Seahorse”, as well as three other Falcon jet patients, including “The dates and islands of departure are being set”.
Acceleration of medical evacuations
The director general of the Regional Health Agency in Guadeloupe, Valérie Denux, told a press conference that medical evacuations were going to ” reinforce “ in the coming weeks. At the beginning of next week, “We will do another rotation and then we will accelerate (…) according to needs because the wave is very strong and catches up with us “, she added, anticipating several evacuations per week.
This device is “More than necessary to relieve the CHU services, noted Mme Denux. We have opened 86 intensive care beds across the country and 82 are occupied. However, we have 5 to 7 entries per day. “
Between August 9 and August 15, Guadeloupe recorded 7,276 new cases. On the vaccination side, 32% of Guadeloupe residents over 18 have received a first injection, while only 20.9% have a complete vaccination course.
Since the start of the fourth epidemic wave, at least 36 Covid-19 patients hospitalized in critical care have been transferred to another region, including nineteen from the West Indies to Ile-de-France. This count, stopped Tuesday evening, also includes transfers from Occitanie (14) and Corsica (3) to Hauts-de-France, Grand Est and Brittany. The list continues to grow: on Wednesday the Nancy University Hospital announced on Twitter the imminent arrival of patients from Perpignan.