Doctors from HCM City’s Chợ Rẫy Hospital assist medical staff at the Đà Nẵng Lung Hospital treat severe COVID-19 patients. Photo courtesy of Chợ Rẫy Hospital

HCM CITY — Since the COVID-19 outbreak flared up in the central city of Đà Nẵng late last month, HCM City’s Chợ Rẫy Hospital has dispatched six medical teams to help contain its spread.

Eight doctors, five nurses and three laboratory technicians have been sent to hospitals in Đà Nẵng and neighbouring Quảng Nam Province in the last two weeks.

Trần Thanh Linh, deputy head of Chợ Rẫy’s intensive care unit, is assisting doctors at Đà Nẵng Lung Hospital to treat severely ill COVID-19 patients.

His team members take turns at night to ensure round-the-clock assistance to the medical teams and care for patients, he said.

Đà Nẵng Lung Hospital’s intensive care unit currently houses dozens of patients with COVID-19, many of them on ventilators, some on extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO) machines and being treated with continuous blood purification.

Dr Lê Kinh Luân, head of a medical team from Chợ Rẫy dispatched to Hòa Vang Hospital, said his team was helping treat nine COVID-19 patients and the number was expected to rise to 16 this week.

Huỳnh Quang Đại, deputised to the Quảng Nam Province General Hospital, said: “The pressure on the health care workforce on the front lines in the fight against COVID-19 in Đà Nẵng and Quảng Nam has intensified with an unprecedented workload and high risk of infection.”

“But we do our best to treat infected patients with a sense of optimism and determination.”

On August 8 the HCM City Department of Health dispatched three doctors and five nurses from the Gia Định People’s Hospital, People’s 115 and Thủ Đức District Hospital to Đà Nẵng.

On Monday, 20 doctors and 20 nurses of the central province of Thừa Thiên-Huế headed to neighbouring Đà Nẵng to help their colleagues fight the COVID-19 pandemic.
Chairman of the provincial People’s Committee Phan Ngọc Thọ said he appreciated the responsibility as well as sentiments of medical staff for Đà Nẵng, adding that this is a meaningful deed to help the city and the entire nation defeat the coronavirus.
The Huế University of Medicine and Pharmacy Hospital also plans to send 150 volunteers to support a field hospital in Đà Nẵng.
Meanwhile, Huế Central Hospital has mobilised experienced medical staff and modern equipment to treat severe COVID-19 patients transported from Đà Nẵng and central Quảng Nam. — VNS