The usual missions of medical transport have been disrupted during the coronavirus crisis. The care of Covid patients and participation in their transfers from overcrowded hospitals to less affected regions have been priorities.
“Our teams have been strongly mobilized, this crisis has given meaning to their profession”. For Jean-Charles Suire-Duron, managing director of Groupe VYV’s “medical transport” activity, the time for assessment is also that of satisfaction the day after the acute phase of the Covid-19 epidemic. However, this could have left this sector distraught: “Overnight, we recorded a drop of 70 to 80% in our usual activity, explains the director of Harmonie Ambulance. We only work on medical prescription and all the care and health centers with which we are linked have dedicated themselves to the care of Covid patients, in fact interrupting many scheduled treatments.
At the heart of medical evacuations
Less care, therefore fewer patients to transport… But the seriousness of the health situation quickly imposed other missions on the 850 employees in this activity. “We have responded to our public service mission by continuing to intervene urgently for patients in their homes and, above all, we have largely participated in medical evacuations”, explains Jean-Charles Suire-Duron.
Its teams, in permanent contact with hospitals, contributed to the transport of patients suffering from a severe form of Covid when it was necessary to lighten the resuscitation services of many establishments. They were the ones who took part in the ambulance convoys to the stations and airports from which trains and planes specially equipped to transfer the victims of the coronavirus to regions less affected by the epidemic departed.
“In these crisis situations, we realize even better our importance”, underlines the boss of Harmonie Ambulance who is also delighted to have had a certain sense of anticipation on the protective equipment of which his employees, unlike many in this highly exposed profession, have never failed. “Decisions had been taken upstream and we had reserves for this equipment”.
A difficult return of patients to health centers
A month and a half after the start of deconfinement, activity resumes a more usual course. But it is far from having returned to the level before the coronavirus crisis. For very practical reasons, first: “Respect for barrier gestures and distancing in establishments does not allow them to reschedule as much care as before the crisis”, specifies Jean-Charles Suire-Duron. Maus above all, medical transport records, like other health professionals, a difficult return to health centers for patients with chronic diseases. “Many, for fear of contamination in the hospital or in other health establishments, have completely stopped the follow-up of their pathology, including people followed for cancers or even on dialysis … and that’s complicated to bring these patients back!”, notes, concerned, the director of Harmony Ambulance.
For these, the risk that may be incurred during transport will soon no longer be able to be advanced: “We have produced a prototype of separation to isolate the passengers from the driver, and vice versa; and we are no longer waiting to equip all our transport vehicles sitting only the green light that must be given to us by the health agencies”. The ingenuity of the Harmonie Ambulance teams has been nourished by the lessons of the crisis.
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