The Princess Grace Hospital has detailed exactly how it has been preparing for the Covid-19 epidemic, including the addition of extra staff and activating a crisis unit.

The Princess Grace Hospital in Monaco has been in a “white plan” situation for the past few weeks, anticipating a swell in patients as the number of Covid-19 cases grows.

The hospital says this plan includes asking all hospital staff to remain on-call, the cancellation of appointments and activities not deemed absolutely necessary, the activation of a crisis unit, the suspension of visits to patients in the gerontology units and strict limitations on visits to patients in other wards.

The measures currently being undertaken are by no means set in stone, and the hospital is reserving the right to add new conditions as the needs arise.  

The hospital community is being mobilised and kept up-to-date on all the current happenings surrounding the virus and have anticipated the need to recruit additional medical and paramedical assistance to handle caseloads if they exceed a threshold.

Meanwhile, the administration is doing all they can to ensure the safety of those charged with helping the sick, enforcing protocols to keep the healers from falling ill themselves.

If the situation deteriorates, there is an operational plan in place that will expand on the dedicated 24 bed hospital unit already in place to free up more beds.

Coordination amongst health care workers outside the hospital has also been activated. City Medicine, CCM and IM2S are all prepared to act if necessary, to assist the hospital in their tasks.

A remote consultation service is also being deployed. This will allow medical specialists to monitor patients who do not require hospitalisation via a secure app. This could be instrumental in the coming weeks as a way to free up personnel who must handle other urgent or life-threatening situations.

Across the border in France, things are also ramping up. The Chinese have sent a large shipment of medical supplies such as masks, medical gloves and protective suits to assist the steep jump in cases. Additionally, the construction of makeshift hospitals are being proposed in eastern France, the area hardest hit, housing roughly 30 intensive care beds.

The proposal of these temporary hospitals come on the heels of an unprecedented peacetime move whereby the French army has started the evacuation of critically ill patients from the east of France in order to ease pressure on the local hospitals, particularly of Colmar and Mulhouse. The patients are being transferred to military hospitals in the south. This move is expected to be the first of several such airlifts.