Doctors treat a COVID-19 patient with severe symptoms at HCM City COVID-19 Rehabilitation Hospital. VNA/VNS Photo

HCM CITY — The HCM City People’s Committee has asked the Ministry of Health to send more medical personnel to the city amid a surge in hospitalisations of COVID-19 patients.

In its proposal, the city asked for 1,000 doctors and 2,000 nurses, including ICU 300 doctors and 600 nurses, to fill the shortage at COVID-19 treatment hospitals which need to expand the number of beds.

There were 1,175 cases recorded in the city on Thursday (December 16). More than 1,000 patients with severe complications were hospitalised on Thursday and 65 deaths were recorded.

As of Thursday, a total of 71,832 COVID-19 patients were  under quarantine and treatment, including 11,574 patients with moderate and severe symptoms being treated at hospitals in the city.

More than 3,100 patients are in ICUs and on ventilators.

The southernmost province of Cà Mau on Thursday also asked the Ministry of Health to mobilise additional medical personnel, and more medicine, ventilators and vaccines.

The number of daily cases in the province has surpassed 1,000 in recent days, causing a shortage of medical personnel and medicines.

The daily number hit a record 1,339 on Thursday, the highest number of cases in the country, followed by HCM City with 1,175 and Tây Ninh Province, with 932.

The province asked the ministry for 10 doctors and nurses to treat patients with moderate and severe symptoms for three weeks, starting from December 20.

Five medical teams with two doctors and six nurses each are also needed to provide home-based treatment for COVID-19 patients from December 20 to January 22.

It also asked the ministry to provide additional doses of the anti-viral medicine Molnupiravir for treatment of 50,000 cases and Favipiravir for treatment of 20,000 cases.

It petitioned the ministry to allocate 65,000 doses of Pfizer vaccines to administer shots for immunocompromised people and frontline workers this month. —VNS