During the month of October, the Covid-19 screening center at Parnasse, in Nîmes, received around a thousand people daily, which created a long queue. Faced with this overload of work, all the village caregivers, pharmacists, doctors and nurses, got together and decided to create a testing center.
With the assistance of the mayor, Maurice Gaillard, who provided them with a room in the Villa-Rose and the authorization of the Regional Health Agency (ARS), the tests began in mid-November. It is the nurses and the volunteer pharmacists who take it in turns, during their rest period.
Two teams are permanently present during opening days and hours. The two types of tests performed are PCR and antigen. “The latter is privileged because of a rapid result, as well as an increased reliability”, specifies a nurse.
Since its opening, the average has been around fifteen people tested per day. On the eve of the holiday season, the number increased to forty daily checks, both adults and children. The virus positivity rate was around 10% in December, but doubled during the first week of January.
As the nurses put it: “The patients are very grateful that this center exists within the village Its creation allowed all the professionals to meet. This crisis will have had at least the merit of forming a formidable team and an unprecedented solidarity between the various health actors . “
Discussions are underway to open a vaccination room. This center is part of a departmental coordination which has around twenty. They were created on the initiative of primary care practitioners (general practitioner, nurses and pharmacists) who will take an active part in the upcoming vaccination campaign.
Free Midi Correspondent: 06 80 59 76 58
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