EGALURG: Equal access to emergency care in the France-Spain cross-border area

closed

“The hospital is a mobile and autonomous care unit, unique in Europe, able to take care of 18 patients, and can be deployed in less than an hour on any site.”Sophie Mourgues, Manager of European projects at the CHU Toulouse and Vanessa Houze-Cerfon, project manager EGAL-URG, research coordinator SAMU 31 CHU Toulouse.Innovative tools and IT platforms are being developed to simplify administrative procedures and communication and a mobile hospital was built.Other project activities have included an international congress for emergencies and disasters, and workshops in Spain and  France to raise awareness of the need for equal access to emergency healthcare.Rugged terrainThe 656 km-long border between France and Spain runs through the Pyrenees mountains, which makes communication and access to emergency care difficult, particularly for people in isolated areas. This is compounded by administrative barriers.The project has three aims: to standardise patient care protocols to ensure better management of emergencies or crises; to train healthcare professionals; and to develop tools for effective emergency and disaster response.Mobile hospitalThe hospital developed under the project can be transported on a truck and is about the size of a shipping container. It consists of five collapsible units, all connected, that can easily be set up within 20 minutes on an area of 30 m2. There is enough space and equipment to treat 18 patients at a time and it has its own water, oxygen and electricity supply. Officially called the Europe Occitania Multipurpose Mobile Unit, it was built by the University Hospital Centre of Toulouse.Thus far it was used to test people for COVID-19 in isolated parts of the Haute-Garonne department, in the Occitanie region. Staff were trained in use of the unit and a total of 1322 tests were conducted.Between January and February 2021, it was taken to towns in the Navarre region of Spain to be used for COVID-19 vaccinations. The first stop was the Refena Conference Centre in Pamplona.The project is a partnership between Toulouse University Hospital (lead partner), Navarrabiomed - Miguel Servet Foundation, Hospital Centre of the Basque Coast and Emergency Medical Services of Catalonia. Each partner organisation works on various project activities with a group of associate institutions located in that region.Total investment and EU fundingTotal investment for the project “Creation of a network for cross-border cooperation in the sphere of disaster medicine to give the population access to emergency healthcare – EGALURG” is EUR 2 343 192, with the EU’s European Regional Development Fund contributing EUR 1 523 075 through the “Interreg V-A - Spain-France-Andorra (POCTEFA)” Operational Programme for the 2014-2020 programming period.