Five of the 17 French patients transferred to Belgian hospitals were still there on Friday, according to the Health Department.
On the other hand, there have not been any transfers of Belgian patients to French or Dutch hospitals, "as intensive care units in France and the Netherlands are saturated," Vinciane Charler, spokesperson of the Belgian Health Department, said on Friday.
Belgium's first patient transfer to Germany happened on Friday, "but this is not a transfer we managed, the hospitals did it between them," Charler said.
“The patient needed an ECMO and was transferred from Liege to Germany,” the Health Department explained. Extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO) is a specialist treatment that uses a pump to circulate blood through an artificial lung back into the bloodstream of a very ill patient.
The Health Department also indicated that, on average, 16 patients per day are transferred between hospitals in Belgium.
The Brussels Times
