Doctors from HCM City’s Cho Ray Hospital assist medical staff at the Da Nang Lung Hospital treat severe COVID-19 patients (Photo courtesy of Cho Ray Hospital)   HCM City (VNA) – Since the COVID-19 outbreak flared up in the central city of Da Nang late last month, Ho Chi Minh City’s Cho Ray 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 Da Nang and neighbouring Quang Nam province in the last two weeks.

Tran Thanh Linh, deputy head of Cho Ray’s intensive care unit, is assisting doctors at Da Nang 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.

The Da Nang 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 Le Kinh Luan, head of a medical team from Cho Ray dispatched to Hoa Vang Hospital, said his team was helping treat nine COVID-19 patients and the number was expected to rise to 16 this week.

Huynh Quang Dai, deputised to Quang Nam province’s General Hospital, said the pressure on the health care workforce on the front lines in the fight against COVID-19 in Da Nang and Quang 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, HCM City’s Department of Health dispatched three doctors and five nurses from Gia Dinh People’s Hospital, People’s 115 and ThuDuc District Hospital to support Da Nang in the fight against COVID-19./.

VNA