HCMC – The HCMC Department of Health has asked all hospitals in the city to convert their Covid-19 quarantine areas into Covid-19 treatment wards with at least 10% of hospital beds.
The requirement was made as the number of new Covid-19 cases, hospitalizations and deaths in HCMC is increasing, the pandemic is developing complicatedly in the southern region and many countries worldwide have detected the Omicron variant, the local media reported.
Director of the department Tang Chi Thuong on December 2 asked hospitals to review and restructure their wards and departments to ensure the admission and treatment of Covid-19 and other patients.
Children’s hospitals, grade-one general hospitals and hospitals for infectious diseases were encouraged to establish intensive care units for Covid-19 patients to receive critical patients.
Hospitals must continue enhancing the classification of patients to detect Covid-19 cases and prevent cross-infection.
HCMC has maintained four hospitals which had been completely converted into Covid-19 treatment facilities—the HCMC Hospital for Tropical Diseases, Trung Vuong, An Binh and Cu Chi hospitals. Six other hospitals had been divided into two zones, with one for Covid-19 treatment, including the Eastern People Military Hospital, Pham Ngoc Thach, Tu Du, Hung Vuong, Nguyen Tri Phuong and the HCMC Children’s Hospital. These 10 hospitals have some 4,300 beds for Covid-19 patients.
In addition, the city has 13 municipal-level field hospitals with some 22,000 beds, 16 district-level field hospitals with about 8,000 beds and 65 Covid-19 treatment facilities with 9,000 beds.
HCMC has to date recorded nearly 473,900 Covid-19 cases. The city is treating 86,000 Covid-19 patients, including over 66,000 cases at home and the rest at hospitals and centralized quarantine centers.
