More beds set up along the corridor of the HCM City Paediatrics Hospital No.1’s respiratory department due to an increasing number of children diagnosed with respiratory diseases. — Photo tuoitre.vn

HCM CITY — Paediatrics hospitals in HCM City are seeing an increase in the number of children diagnosed with respiratory diseases due to the rainy season beginning earlier than usual in the south this year.

The HCM City Paediatrics Hospital No.1 in District 10 is overcrowded with an increasing number of children diagnosed with respiratory diseases such as acute respiratory infections, bronchial asthma, upper respiratory infections, and pneumonia. Common symptoms include runny nose and mild fever at the early stage.

Trần Anh Tuấn, head of the hospital’s respiratory department, told Tuổi Trẻ (Youth) online newspaper that the number of children being hospitalised had increased over recent days due to rainy weather.

Air pollution is also causing an increase in the number of children with respiratory diseases, according to Tuấn.

Cases of respiratory diseases usually spike from August to November every year, but it came earlier this year.

Since the beginning of May, the hospital receives about 200 children patients daily, and even more than 300 on the peak days.

“The number of child patients is more than double the number of beds, although the hospital has added more beds along the hospital corridors,” he said.

Most of the hospitalised patients are babies under 12 months old with moderate, severe or very severe symptoms.

Among them, many children require mechanical ventilation and intensive treatment.

The hospital’s doctors and nurses are extremely busy providing treatment.

To struggle with patient overcrowding, the hospital has strengthened outpatient treatment for cases with mild symptoms.

The number of children suffering from respiratory diseases is also increasing at other children's hospitals in the city.

Dr Nguyễn Minh Tiến, deputy director of the HCM City Paediatric Hospital in Bình Chánh District, said the number of children aged under 5 with respiratory diseases had increased by 20 per cent to 30 per cent compared to the same period last year.

About 5 per cent of the child patients needed to be hospitalised for treatment with severe symptoms. — VNS