In Toulouse, the Haute-Garonne health insurance hosts the largest platform for monitoring Covid-19 patients in the Occitanie region. To break the spread of the virus, more than 1000 daily phone calls are made.
It has been in place since May 11, 2020. The Health Insurance “contact tracing” telephone platform has become an essential link in the fight against the Covid-19 pandemic. In Haute-Garonne, every day, Sunday included, from 8:30 a.m. to 6 p.m., telephone advisers contact patients whose Covid-19 screening test has been positive. In order to break the chain of contaminations, maintenance is rigorous: verification of the place of residence, provision of masks, dispatch of a nurse if necessary, establishment of a work stoppage if teleworking is not possible, reminder of isolation instructions and, of course, listing of people identified as contact at risk.
“Apart from Sunday when they are a little surprised, people are waiting for our call. It allows you to put things down and not get lost in the many messages, ”underlines Stéphane Cobigo, deputy director of Haute-Garonne health insurance, in charge of the health department. “The instructions change regularly, we are in the 25th version,” confirms Nathalie Lagrace, manager of the Haute-Garonne contact tracing platform, the largest in Occitanie.
In one of the call rooms, Camélia, a 19-year-old student, is one of the last call center agents recruited. “I arrived three weeks ago and I really like this job. I feel useful, we are a link in the fight against the epidemic, ”underlines the young woman who has just hung up with a 25-year-old patient. “The profiles are very young now. In particular, I had a lot of positive minors on their return from vacation or summer camp, ”adds the telephone advisor.
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To cope with the fourth wave of the epidemic, 93 people are currently working on the platform and recruitments (for fixed-term contracts) are continuing. “We went from 41 calls per day at the end of June to 250 calls on July 15 and we are between 1000 and 1200 calls per day since July 20. We have already surpassed the 950 daily calls that we reached during the peak of the third wave last November. The increase in the number of positive people has never been so dazzling, ”explains Nathalie Lagrace.
Faced with this influx, the strategy is changing. The “retrotracing” surveys which made it possible to go back high enough in the chain of contamination are no longer relevant. You have to go quickly to contact as many positive people as possible in the hours following the transmission of the result by the laboratory.
Positive case: instructions for use
When a patient is identified positive for Covid-19, he receives an SMS from Health Insurance. This SMS refers to a site on which he can prepare the list and the coordinates of his contact cases. A telephone advisor then calls him to establish this list and remind him of the isolation measures.
Isolation should last 10 days after the onset of the first symptoms. His contact cases must immediately be tested and if negative another 7 days later. Within the outbreak, unvaccinated contact cases must isolate themselves for 17 days.
For any information, Tel: 0800 130 000 (free number)
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