Nurses bring new Covid-19 patients to the Emergency ward. By Dec. 7, the ward was treating around 80 coronavirus cases who require ventilation and blood filtration. The ward receives around 10 severe Covid-19 cases a day from Hanoi and other northern regions.
When a coronavirus patient is admitted, doctors would perform basic diagnoses and tests. Most severe cases suffer underlying conditions like chronic kidney failure, hypertension or cirrhosis. Those with the most severe symptoms would require intensive care.
The Emergency ward had to open up another area on the third floor to make more room for incoming patients.
A team monitors patients and related data. Doctors and nurses are distributed across shifts throughout the day, with regular personnel shortages prompting the hospital to send reinforcements.
Doctors insert a breathing tube into a newly admitted patient. Tran Van Bac, deputy head of the Emergency ward, said up to 40 percent of patients here are aged above 80, the eldest being 101.
Most are unvaccinated or have only received one shot, placing them at high risk of severe Covid-19.
A doctor feeds a patient through a tube.
Bac said most patients cannot function on their own. Many have either had strokes or are paralyzed, meaning doctors and nurses have to take care of their feeding and personal hygiene.
Some patients remain conscious, but their lungs have been severely damaged. They require oxygen support, meaning their normal interactions are limited. They are tested daily.
The goal of treatment is to bolster patients' immune systems, doctors say.
A severe Covid-19 patient has his blood filtered. It helps improve their vitals, especially those with severe lung damage.
Bac reconfigures a ventilator. He says the workload increases week by week, and becomes all the more difficult as every patient requires the utmost medical care.
The National Hospital for Tropical Diseases is the main Covid-19 treatment facility in northern Vietnam. The hospital currently takes care of around 500 patients, all severe cases. It has around 500 beds and are converting them all for ICU purposes.
Some patients require ECMO and have to be moved to ICUs. But the ICU ward, with around 30 beds, is almost full.
