What a welcome help in the fight against Coronavirus…. The Agence Régionale de Santé (ARS) has announced in a press release to open ambulatory consultation centers in all regions of France allowing urban doctors and other health centers to get organized with the municipal authorities and to set up, on the territory, “new consultation modalities for patients presenting COVID-19-suggesting symptoms” and unblocking hospitals as of orientating patients and testing in case of symptomatic people at risk.
Created at the initiative of health professionals, these centers aim at “optimizing the care of patients presenting COVID-19 symptoms in a secure place” but also “at avoiding the propagation of the virus in usual care premises” enabling to “taking care of the other patients in city offices the best way possible” and even to include “a strong interconnection with paramedics and local emergency departments” in order to “effectively regulate patients influx and care demands”.
Note that these outpatient consultation centers are not testing centers, and only symptomatic patients ticking current criteria (fragile people, pregnant women, health care professionals…) will be able to have a diagnostic test prescribed to them by a doctor.
As for these new ambulatory consultation centers, there are different services:
Also note that these new centers are open by appointment, after prior medical consultation by your GP, home-consultation associations, ER or even paramedics. In Ile-de-France, several centers have been created (or will be soon), including 84 for Paris only. We also count three centers in Seine-et-Marne, six in Essonne, nine in Yvelines, ten in Hauts-de-Seine and Val de Marne and 13 in Val d’Oise and 20 in Seine-Saint-Denis.
