The first six among the expected 400 mobile medical stations for coronavirus patients have been put into operation in two districts of Vietnam’s Ho Chi Minh City.

These facilities, including one in District 3 and five others in District 7, began operating on Friday after the opening ceremonies conducted by the municipal Department of Health.

They aim to give healthcare services to COVID-19 patients at home, thus contributing to easing overload at hospitals and minimizing deaths, the department said.

The department expects to set up about 400 such stations across the city in the near future, each of which will take care of 50 to 100 COVID-19 patients, said Dr. Tang Chi Thuong, deputy director of the health department.

These stations can be set up at gymnasiums, polyclinics, cultural houses, offices of the administration of communes and wards, or other suitable places.

Each mobile health station will have one to two doctors, five to seven medical staff and volunteers, and will be equipped with at least two oxygen tanks, oxygen masks and other first aid tools.

Dr. Le Thi Bao Yen, head of the mobile health station No. 1,  located in Ward 11 of District 3, said the unit currently has one doctor and two nurses and is equipped with four oxygen generators, about 10 large and small oxygen tanks and full range of drugs as prescribed for treating COVID-19 patients at home.

The station also has a mobile medicine cabinet for both COVID-19 patients and people suffering common illnesses.

Every mobile medical station has two main functions, including taking care of the health of people in the area, in conjunction with the existing local medical stations, and monitoring the situation of COVID-19 patients under home quarantine, Dr. Thuong said.

Medical workers at these stations will provide health consultations for patients via telephone and visit their homes by motorbikes or taxis, while using the electronic health declaration app for patient management.

When being treated at home, each coronavirus patient will be given a medical bag containing cough medications, fever reducers, over-the-counter vitamins, mouthwash, disinfectant sprayers, facemasks, and a pulse oximeter.

Earlier on Thursday, Health Minister Nguyen Thanh Long asked Ho Chi Minh City and other COVID-19-hit localities such as Long An, Dong Nai and Binh Duong Provinces to promptly set up mobile medical stations in order to provide timely care for COVID-19 patients.

As from next Monday, August 23, the city’s administration will apply five solutions to better contain the coronavirus spread, in addition to the current social distancing measures under the Prime Minister’s Directive 16, said the city’s Steering Committee for COVID-19 Prevention and Control at a press conference on Friday.

Concerned agencies are preparing for the implementation of these measures and all details will be announced to the public before that day, the committee said.

Since the pandemic hit the country in early 2020, the city has documented 167,476 COVID-19 cases, including 6,071 deaths, while the corresponding figures of the country are 323,268 and 7,540, the Ministry of Health reported on Friday evening.

As such, the city has accounted for 51.8 percent and 80.5 percent of the country’s total numbers of infections and fatalities, respectively.

Since late April, when the fourth COVID-19 outbreak erupted in Vietnam, the country has recorded 319,209 domestic infections, or as much as 98.7 percent of the overall figure, with the highly contagious Delta variant dominant in most of the cases.

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