To Fight a Fast-Moving Pandemic, Get a Faster Hospital

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Passenger Trains > France using TGV train as very fast ambulance

Date: 04/01/20 09:09
France using TGV train as very fast ambulance
Author: SDGreg

https://www.citylab.com/life/2020/03/coronavirus-cases-france-train-hospital-tgv-covid-19-patient/608833/

"This week, the French government adapted a five-car TGV (Train a Grande Vitesse) to serve as a mobile hospital. It’s intended to shuttle patients from the hardest hit region to hospitals with more capacity, easing the stress on resources."

"Equipped with ventilators and medical staff, the train started service Thursday, transporting 20 patients from the cities of Strasbourg and Mulhouse in the country’s northeastern Grand Est (“Greater East”) region to hospitals in the currently less-affected Loire Region."

One of France's high-speed TGV trains has been repurposed to transport Covid-19 patients. Estelle Ruiz/NurPhoto via Getty Images

To Fight a Fast-Moving Pandemic, Get a Faster Hospital
FEARGUS O'SULLIVAN MARCH 26, 2020

To move Covid-19 patients from the hardest-hit areas, authorities in France turned one of the nation’s famous TGV trains into a very fast ambulance.

France’s latest weapon in the fight against Covid-19 is a high-speed train. This week, the French government adapted a five-car TGV (Train a Grande Vitesse) to serve as a mobile hospital. It’s intended to shuttle patients from the hardest hit region to hospitals with more capacity, easing the stress on resources. Equipped with ventilators and medical staff, the train started service Thursday, transporting 20 patients from the cities of Strasbourg and Mulhouse in the country’s northeastern Grand Est (“Greater East”) region to hospitals in the currently less-affected Loire Region.

There are good reasons for taking the fight against Covid-19 onto the rails. France, like several other European nations, has instituted a lockdown that bars all non-essential travel between cities. Turning the TGV into a giant, high-speed ambulance gives healthcare workers a more spacious — and thus safer — environment to work. The train can reach its destination faster and more smoothly than a road vehicle, and carry more people than a helicopter.

France needs the hospital train because its distribution of Covid-19 cases is very uneven. With more than 5,000 confirmed cases among its population of 5.5 million, the Grand Est has the highest incidence of Covid-19 per capita of any French region, surpassing even Paris. Its hospitals have already been running at crisis level for some time, and are reaching the point where doctors are being forced to make painful decisions about who they can and can’t treat. Moving patients to less-affected regions will be a life-saving re-balancing act.

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France sends 'medical fast train' to relocate the sick from badly-hit area in 'European first'
French put coronavirus patients on a fast 'medical train' out of overwhelmed East

By Henry Samue PARIS
25 March 2020 • 6:56pm


France has sent a medical TGV to Strasbourg in the East which is overwhelmed by coronavirus cases CREDIT: STEPHANE DE SAKUTIN/AFP

A special "medicalised TGV" fast train evacuates 20 patients with coronavirus from eastern France on Thursday to other less affected regions of France in what the government said was a "first in Europe".

The TGV, which left from Paris this morning for Strasbourg, was due to transport four patients per coach with a medical team including an anaesthetist-reanimator, an intern, a nurse anaesthetist and three nurses per carriage.

The train's restaurant car was turned into a medical operations centre with stretchers fixed to seats.

The patients are due to be taken to Nantes, Angers, Le Mans and La Roche-sur-Yon in the Loire.

Jean-Jacques Coiplet, health head of the least-affected region of mainland France, said the operation proved the "exemplary solidarity" of the region....

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