Hospitals will struggle if there is a bird flu pandemic

If a pandemic occurs with flu strains spread from person to person, Vietnam will have about 10% of the population infected, ie nearly 8.2 million people. Only 5% of these patients are admitted to hospital, the number of patients has increased to 410,000, while all the beds are now only able to meet 1/4 - Director of the Ministry of Health Treatment Department, Mr. Ly Ngoc Kinh, said. .

According to Mr. Kinh, the situation will be even more serious when there is a much more severe clinical symptom of type A flu than SARS, with severe pneumonia and multi-organ failure complications. That is not to mention the emergency resuscitation system of the infectious department with uneven professional capacity, weak infrastructure and infrastructure, and lack of everything, from means of treatment isolation, vehicles to machines. oxygen, trackers . According to world experts, with the current conditions, the likelihood of death of bird flu patients is very large , especially when the health system is not responding. floating or overloaded.

In Hanoi , the Ministry of Health has designated a number of hospitals specialized in treating bird flu, of which the central level has the Institute of Clinical Medicine for Tropical Diseases and the Central Children , the rest are Dong Da Hospital and Bach Mai Hospital . , Bac Thang Long Hospital and Duc Giang General Hospital .

The Institute of Clinical Medicine for Tropical Diseases said it was impossible to predict the number of patients, so the initial plan was that all suspected cases of flu would be retained at Bach Mai Hospital, then if anyone had positive test results will be transferred to the Institute for treatment.

According to Dr. Nguyen Thi Tuong Van, Deputy Dean of the Emergency Department, at present, the Institute is waiting for funding to be allocated according to the action plan, but there is still a fund to prevent frequent epidemics, stockpile of antibiotics, infusions and Tamiflu medicine enough for disease and people at high risk in their families . The Institute also has 12 old ventilators used during the SARS outbreak and the old flu. Monitoring machine, syringes and needles are sufficient for small fluid, but if they are large, they are certainly missing a lot. The quarantine area has been completed from the beginning of the year and revised to be active when patients are available. The Institute prepared 30 beds for influenza patients, including 15 beds on the second floor for patients with severe illness, the rest were on the 4th floor for lighter or recovered people. In it, 3 beds are always empty with the best oxygen emergency system, ready to receive patients. When the pandemic happened, the number of beds in the hospital was not enough, the hospital would arrange people with other diseases to lower levels, to reserve all 120 beds for flu cases.

Dr. Van also said that if the pandemic happened, the difficulty was not human because the institute could mobilize enough nurses and doctors from Bach Mai Medical Intermediate School and newly graduated students. The main difficulty is the means such as breathing machines, trackers, oxygen systems, due to the expensive, so they cannot equip much. The Institute leaders are looking forward to the completion of the action plan quickly because once a pandemic breaks out, the number of patients will increase and increase rapidly.

The National Hospital of Pediatrics is also preparing to deal with flu quickly. Doctor Nguyen Van Loc, Deputy Director said, Khoa Lay has arranged 30 beds and can mobilize up to 50 beds. In terms of human resources, the hospital will use all infectious doctors and can be mobilized further. About medicine, there was a number of Tamiflu. However, the hospital currently only has 2 ventilators for flu patients, while the estimated number is 10. If mobilizing the entire hospital, there will be 40 units but the number of these devices must be used for patients. other. Equipment and protective equipment are also lacking, the hospital is continuing to buy.

Meanwhile, Dong Da Hospital has set up 3 treatment teams, each with 5 specialists for treatment and emergency; 10 nurses and 1 nurse; 2 teams actively fighting against epidemics. The hospital has planned to classify the epidemic, if translating at level 1 (under 10 patients) and level 2 (less than 50 patients), it will be examined in respiratory department and put into infectious diseases department. Level 3 epidemic (from 50 to 200), severe patients will receive first aid in respiratory department and then transfer to infectious department.

North Thang Long Hospital also prepared 30 beds for flu patients, if the epidemic is large, mobilize all beds. The disease chamber is classified into 3 colors: red for emergency patients, yellow for suspected and blue cases for the area where treatment has been stable. Duc Giang Hospital also has enough manpower, drugs and chemicals for the flu. The Faculty of Internal Medicine currently arranges 19 beds, if the epidemic can be increased to about 150 beds.

In Ho Chi Minh City , the Department of Health has assigned 4 hospitals: Tropical Diseases , Pham Ngoc Thach , Children of I , and Nhi Dong II to establish isolation treatment rooms with 200 sick beds ready to receive patients. come treatment. Ward and commune health stations and enterprises have established a temporary internal quarantine area to isolate on the spot when people are infected.

In provinces, if a small-scale outbreak occurs, the patient will be transferred to 7 central hospitals . If the translation is a bit larger, it will be taken to provincial general hospitals . In the case of a pandemic outbreak , patients will be isolated and treated on the spot.

Thanh Nhan