Vietnam’s business hub Ho Chi Minh City has established a hospital for serious coronavirus cases and urgent preparations are underway for its operation amid rising COVID-19 infections.

Named the Emergency Resuscitation Hospital, it was set up on Wednesday at the second campus of the Ho Chi Minh City Oncology Hospital in Thu Duc City, which is under Ho Chi Minh City.

The new hospital came into being when Ho Chi Minh City is facing a serious coronavirus outbreak that has infected thousands of people every day and made the city the epicenter of the country.

This health facility has 1,000 beds and is fully equipped to receive patients who need the support of extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO), ventilators, and dialysis machines.

With its modern medical infrastructure, the hospital can provide respiratory support to 1,000 patients at a time, said Tang Chi Thuong, deputy director of the Ho Chi Minh City Department of Health.

Every sick bed has an oxygen supply system and a medical air vacuum pump.

Each of the 100 beds for patients of the intensive care unit (ICU) will additionally be equipped with a medical air compressor system. 

Thirty ICU beds for COVID-19 patients were put to use on Thursday, while other preparations have been accelerated to make the facility ready for severe cases.  

It is expected that more than 1,362 health workers from 15 healthcare units across the country will be mobilized to work at the hospital, of which 792 from eight hospitals in Ho Chi Minh City.

Among the medical staff sent to the hospital is Dr. Tran Thanh Linh, deputy head of the Acute Resuscitation Department of Cho Ray Hospital, who was among the medical team that managed to save a seriously-ill British pilot who contracted COVID-19 last year.

Up to now, Ho Chi Minh City has set up about 24 hospitals with a total of over 45,000 beds for COVID-19 patients.

In a report issued on Friday morning, the Ministry of Health confirmed 1,438 new cases, all domestically detected, of which 1,071 were recorded in Ho Chi Minh City.

The number of daily new infections in the city has recently remained at four-digit level. Notably, untraceable infections have showed no sign of stopping.

The latest cases have taken the country’s tally of patients to 42,288, including 9,688 recoveries, as recorded from early 2020.

Since April 27, when the pandemic’s fourth wave appeared in Vietnam, the nation has documented 38,726 domestically-acquired infections.

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