But from that war, each person understands that only moving forward could they get closer to the day of victory, and they make unremitting efforts.

Taking people’s samples for PCR tests

Overcoming COVID-19, other difficulties would be simple

“Fighting COVID-19 is our biggest challenge ever. As we overcome it, we feel the previous difficulties much simpler,” Dr. Mai Huu Thien Bon, Head of Phu My Medical Station (Phu My Commune, Phu Vang District) smiled after the constant hardships were brought to him and his colleagues by the pandemic.

Since the beginning of the 4th breakout until now, more than 600 people have returned to Phu My commune and received medical monitoring. Particularly during the peak period from early November to early December 2021, the commune recorded 58 F0 cases, and monitored 261 F1 cases, 630 F2 cases being isolated and monitored at home.

When a COVID-19 pandemic appeared in the area, under the direction of the Steering Committee for Communal Pandemic Prevention, the healthcare staff and the police coordinated with community teams of pandemic control to urgently trace and investigate the epidemiology suspected cases.

“There are peak days, epidemiological investigation was carried out regardless of day or night. At times like these, we just want to try our best to trace to the end to cut off the source of infection in the community as soon as possible," said Dr. Thien Bon.

Facing hardships, the medical staff of Phu My always encourage each other to overcome and to complete the task, as the Chief of the Station emphasized: "The same goes for other units, not only us".

Chan May Hospital is one of the first COVID-19 treatment facilities activated by the Department of Health to respond to the pandemic situation. Up to now, the hospital has collected and treated more than 670 F0 patients having disease code and more than 230 cases of F0 and F1 with positive rapid test results.

At first, everyone was worried and felt extremely pressured. However, just over a week later, the operation was very smooth and the spirit was no longer under pressure. Up to now, the number of patients is increasing, but the medical staff has been feeling confident.

According to Dr. Specialist 1 Ngo Van Dung (Deputy Director of Phu Loc Medical Center), who is in charge of treatment at Chan May COVID-19 patient treatment facility, the advantage in treatment for F0 at Chan May facility is that beside following the treatment regimen of the Ministry of Health, the hospital is always directly guided and closely monitored by the Department of Health.

“There is a lot of work, so there is no time to think about other things. But sometimes it's a little "self-pity" when calming patients down. There are patients who could become nervous easily, with only symptoms of cough, slight fever, they asked to be transferred to a higher-level hospital. In each such case, it is not easy to explain to the patient," Dr. Dung smiled gently.

Be ready to respond

Since the COVID-19 pandemic, the capacity of the baseline health facilities in Thua Thien Hue has grown much stronger, meeting the practical requirements of the pandemic. In 2020, all F0s of the province were collected and treated at Hue Central Hospital Base 2 - the highest level in the treatment of COVID-19.

But from the beginning of the fourth wave of the pandemic until now, Thua Thien Hue has organized 13 treatment facilities for F0 with no symptoms, or with mild, moderate or severe symptoms. Of the 6,071 COVID-19 cases recorded from the beginning of the epidemic season to December 10, up to 5,942 cases have been collected and treated at medical facilities and isolation facilities as the Department of Health was in charge of professional activities.

Human resources of the health sector are fully mobilized, both inside and outside the public sector, and are fully trained in sampling, tracing, testing, taking care and treating COVID-19 patients. The province has 41 quick response teams. The total PCR testing capacity of the units has been able to take more than 10,000 samples/day.

The medical staff and doctors of medical facilities have overcome many difficulties and achieved certain results in the treatment of F0 cases ranging from no symptoms, or mild and moderate, requiring pharmacological treatment.

“We are very clear that this is a battle,” Assoc. Prof. Dr. Tran Kiem Hao, Director of the Department of Health emphasized. During that battle, the health sector was under a lot of pressure on how to localize, detect and handle traces of the disease as quickly as possible so that the disease would not spread to the community.

The pandemic situation is complicated, the number of F0 is increasing rapidly, the Department has developed scenarios to cope with the situation from the lowest to the highest level which is level 4.

Currently, the health sector and local authorities at all levels are actively working to detect F0 in the community as quickly as possible and urgently implement measures to localize, isolate and block the transmission of the SARS-CoV-2 virus in the community.

“Until today, the medical force on the frontline still meets the requirements of pandemic prevention and control. Each member of the provincial healthcare system shows hard work, dedication, consensus and willingness to work hard in the prevention and control of the pandemic. The battle with COVID-19 will continue. We always uphold the 5K strategy, vaccines, drugs, technology and people awareness. Our greatest desire right now is just to have health to fight the battle longer, " Director of the Department of Health Tran Kiem Hao shared.

Story and photo: Dong Van