Brussels will get three new ambulances and a new vehicle disinfection line from Thursday, the spokesman for the Brussels fire brigade Walter Derieuw said in the afternoon.
The decision to increase the number of ambulances was taken by the head of the Fire and Emergency Medical Assistance Service of the Brussels-Capital Region (SIAMU) in consultation with the hygiene inspector and the medical director of the 112 emergency centre.
The first ambulance will be operational 24/7 with a crew of firefighters/ambulance drivers. It will be stationed at the main fire station on Avenue de l'Héliport.
The second will also be operational 24/7 but with a crew from the military hospital of Neder-over-Heembeek. It is temporarily located at the military hospital.
The third ambulance will be used every day from 08:00 AM until midnight by a Red Cross team. It is located at the Molière hospital in Forest.
With these three additional ambulances, the people of Brussels will benefit from 34 ambulances dedicated to the emergency number 112, two P.I.T. (Paramedical Intervention Team), which are ambulances with a specialised nurse on board, and eight Mobile Emergency and Reanimation Services from different hospitals.
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The new disinfection line will initially be operational from 08:00 AM to 10:00 PM. The facilities at the Heliport are available every day without interruption.
Each vehicle disinfection is done manually in approximately 30 minutes. Walter Derieuw estimates that two ambulances are "lost" because they are being disinfected every day.
For perspective, on Wednesday, there were 73 interventions by emergency services with suspicion of Covid-19 among the patients taken care of out of a total of just over 300 interventions, compared to over 250 in normal times.
"There are a little more interventions than in normal times, but there are also 73 more interventions because, for example, a person with a fever is counted under suspicion of Covid, even if this is not the case", explains Walter Derieuw, "There is also a loss of time with travelling to the disinfection site.”
The Brussels Times
