Support for IMAD — Regional civil protection organisation

In front of the enormous kitchen of the University Hospitals of Geneva (HUG), civil protection personnel prepare the right quantity of meals to be delivered.

Mission leader: Plt Damien Thurre
Deputy leader: Plt Frédéric Chevalier
Civil protection personnel deployed: 60
Maximum number of personnel deployed simultaneously: 42
Number of assigned vehicles: 13

The mission was received on March 24, 2020 for a start on Thursday March 26.

It consisted of:

Support and relieve IMAD’s home meal delivery service, which is facing a 60% increase in requests.
At the beginning, help IMAD employees (teams made up of an civil protection member and a delivery person) responsible for meal deliveries in order to train the civil protection personnel
Then, resume part of the delivery rounds.
Compose bags according to the nutritional particularities of each customer
Ensure the good health of customers

Entry into service was at 0630 in Colombières in order to be at 0700-0730 on the three delivery departure sites (HUG, Freeports, Montbrillant). civil protection personnel were released after lunch, taken to Colombières, then to the parish center.

Ensure a trained and sufficient workforce

On the first day of the mission, 20 civil protection personnel and drivers were called up and welcomed by IMAD management at its offices on Avenue Cardinal-Mermillod in Carouge. Each member was paired with an IMAD delivery worker to form a civil protection–IMAD team. After two days of training, a second team of 20 members was deployed. They trained in the same way with the same delivery workers, while the first team rested for two days. ORPC Valavran and IMAD therefore had 40 trained members able to work in pairs.

IMAD delivery staff then assigned part of their rounds to teams of two civil protection members. This ensured that two people travelled in each vehicle, in accordance with the guidelines. The pairs stayed together so they could become familiar with their assigned routes.

To maintain a rotation and give the deployed personnel days and weeks off, a third team of 20 people was called up. They were trained by the personnel who had already been working there for a month. A few individuals were also deployed separately to cover illness or other absences.

By car or by bike

Each team had a vehicle provided by the ORPC while others were transported to the sites directly, where they collected either one of the vehicles provided by the IMAD or an electric bike. These were used for deliveries in the city center.

Rain or shine, the cyclists set off every morning with their meals to be delivered.

In the refrigerated rooms next to the HUG kitchen, civil protection personnel prepare their bicycle deliveries.

The meals were prepared by the HUG kitchens and made available to delivery people from 0700-0730. civil protection personnel, in collaboration with IMAD delivery men, prepared insulated boxes with the number of meals to be delivered. There was usually soup, salad, main course, dessert, bread. Sometimes fruit and cheese.

Each meal delivered was different depending on the customer's diet. You couldn't make a mistake and put together the meals as the delivery round progressed.

Complication: each client had a different diet (for example without meat, without fish, diet for diabetics or even crushed meals in case of chewing problems). There was no mistake, on the one hand because customers are entitled to what they asked for (they pay for it), on the other because diet can be a question of life or death for fragile people. It was therefore a matter of placing the correct composition of each customer's meal in a compostable plastic bag.

Gel and mask for everyone’s safety

To reduce the risk of infection, civil protection personnel and IMAD delivery staff were equipped with surgical masks, supplied by IMAD every morning, and hand sanitiser. The sanitiser had to be used before handling meals for delivery, before handing them over at the client’s door and again after delivery.

Behind the scenes, the two heads of mission set up a monthly schedule (of which only two weeks were confirmed over time). The difficulty was to ensure that every morning, at 0630 in Colombières, the 40 civil protection members on duty (and the drivers) were present.

Initially, to ensure the quality of the service, the team leaders worked with civil protection personnel they already knew from missions before the pandemic and could rely on. They needed a solid foundation to launch the mission and train the personnel deployed later.

Two civil protection personnel prepare their deliveries.

The commitment was also managed on a day-to-day basis thanks to additional daily planning, including all the teams, the delivery departure sites, the vehicles used and the start and end of each team's mission. This is to ensure the quality of work and personnel management. Communication between the teams and managers took place through the What's app application as well as by radio, via the structure set up by the Telematics area.

Having two heads of mission who were well aware of the situation and its evolution allowed them to replace each other. Not only so that they can rest, but above all as insurance in the event of illness.

Fruitful collaboration with Imad

The heads of mission had several telephone coordination meetings with IMAD management in order to keep themselves regularly informed on the evolution of the mission and needs. An important session took place on April 23, 2020, almost a month after the start of the mission. During this session, the feedback from IMAD was very positive. The staffing requirements of Civil Protection were also discussed, which were slightly overestimated by IMAD at the start of the mission.

A slight dispute arose following a side mission carried out by ORPC Valavran. In fact, IMAD asked the ORPC to deliver lunches to all Meals on Wheels customers. It was in fact a new offer from IMAD while ORPC Valavran took this as an advertising action which should not have been carried out by PCi. An exchange of letters between the ORPC and the IMAD, as well as a discussion session, made it possible to put things straight and continue the mission.

On 01.05.2020, an additional mission was carried out. This involved delivering meals and shopping to nine buildings with supervision for the elderly (IEPA) spread across the cantonal territory.

Reduction in personnel numbers

From Monday 04.05.2020, the number of civil protection personnel committed has been reduced to 28 instead of the initial 40. It was in fact noted that certain teams of civil protection personnel finished their delivery rounds too early, in the middle of the morning, and that IMAD delivery men were able to carry out almost their entire round alone.

*Mission completed on 15.05.2020*