Patient safety why is it important

The Hanoitimes – Monitoring people entering and leaving hospitals in Hanoi would be tightened while those inside the hospitals should stay one meter away from each other.

The Hanoi Steering Committee on Covid-19 Prevention and Control on August 18 asked hospitals in the city to practice social distancing and curb patient visit in order to prevent cross-infection, Kinh Te & Do Thi reported.

Hospitals and medical facilities in Hanoi city need to enforce social distancing measures. Illustrative photo

Hospitals and medical facilities in Hanoi city are requested to enforce social distancing measures. Accordingly, one seriously ill patient is allowed to have only one caregiver and the caregiver would not be changed until the patient’s discharge.

Monitoring people entering and leaving the hospitals would be tightened while those inside the hospitals should stay one meter away from each other. Hospitals are requested to keep indoor environment well ventilated and perform comprehensive patient care in emergency and intensive care units.

The municipal Steering Committee also requests health facilities to monitor and take measures to ensure maximum safety and prevent high-risk patients from acquiring the virus, especially the elderly and people with underlying medical conditions.

The hospitals and medical facilities need to report results of the pandemic prevention and control to the Steering Committee and to the municipal Department of Health before August 25.

Directors and heads of hospitals and medical facilities would be held responsible if there is any breach of the regulations on Covid-19 prevention and control detected in their areas of responsibility.

The Hanoi Department of Health has been assigned to coordinate with the People’s Committees of districts and towns to check medical facilities in the area, focusing on enforcing the measures of screening, detecting and preventing Covid-19 transmission in hospitals and ensuring safety for patients, patient’s family members and health workers.

The Department of Health must also handle hospitals that fail to meet the pandemic prevention and control requirements; remind or even request competent authorities to close the hospitals that do not comply with measures to prevent and control the pandemic.

The Hanoitimes – The two hospitals specializing in lungs and kidney diseases in Hanoi are treating patients who will be vulnerable if acquiring Covid-19.

As the Covid-19 pandemic drags on, medical facilities need to ensure utmost safety, Zing.vn quoted Dr. Luong Ngoc Khue, head of the Administration of Medical Examination and Treatment under the Ministry of Health, as saying at a recent inspection to two high-risk hospitals in Hanoi.

According to Dr. Khue, two hospitals specializing in lung and kidney diseases in Hanoi are treating patients who will be vulnerable if acquiring contracting coronavirus. In fact, of the eleven Covid-19 deaths in Danang, Vietnam’s biggest epicenter now, most of them were with chronic kidney failure, pneumonia and other chronic illnesses.

Dr. Luong Ngoc Khue and the Ministry of Health’s inspection team check two high-risk hospitals in Hanoi.

The Hanoi Lung Hospital provides medical checkups to over 100 patients a day. It also treats patients with tuberculosis, chronic obstructive pulmonary, multi-resistant tuberculosis, among other illnesses. Thus, the hospital needs to closely supervise and manage its patients, said Dr. Khue.

The Hanoi Kidney Hospital currently treats 444 hemodialysis patients with underlying diseases (for example, cardiovascular diseases, diabetes) and 517 patients with chronic kidney. Meanwhile, most of the dialysis machines are old. Currently, 77 machines are fully operated from three to four shifts per day.

Checking the safety criteria would reveal gaps that need to be addressed in time, as well as preventing, isolating and transferring patients in a timely and effective manner.

The Ministry of Health’s inspection team also checked Dolife International Hospital. Dr. Khue suggested that the hospital should pay attention to the ventilation system for the patient’s chamber.

He added that medical facilities have to learn from the disease outbreaks at Hong Ngoc General Hospital, Bach Mai Hospital, Hanoi Kidney Hospital in order to not repeat the same mistakes made by these health centers.

Khue also suggested that Hanoi’s hospitals need to improve their Covid-19 testing capacity in order to be ready to cope with the pandemic.

Hanoi hospitals curb admissions

Hanoi hospitals are strengthening Covid-19 prevention measures, monitoring hospital admissions and recommending patients that they should be cared for by only on family member and should not receive visitors.

Quarantine area at the Center for Tropical Diseases under the Hanoi-based Bach Mai Hospital.

Hospitals across the country are now highly vunerable to Covid-19. Four hospitals in Danang city had to be closed, more than 10 medical staffers were infected, and 15 Covid-19 patients died. From Danang experience, hospitals in Hanoi need to tighten up control of visits and apply safety measures.

“With only one patient being infected with coronavirus, a the hospital would be at risk of being closed,” Dr. Khue stressed.

At the Hanoi-based Bach Mai Hospital, Dr. Nguyen Viet Hung, head of the Department of Infection Control, said that his hospital’s primary goal is to prevent cross-contagion among medical staff, patients, caregivers, and related people in the hospital.

Dr. Le Van Quang, director of the Hanoi K (Cancer) Hospital and head of the hospital’s Covid 19 prevention steering committee, asked the patients and their family members to report online before going to the hospital. The hospital has built a website at https://www.khaibaoyte-bvk.com and requested patients to make online medical declarations through it.

“Online medical declaration is not only compulsory for the patient, family members, and visitors to the hospital, but 100% of health workers must also take it seriously. Those failing to declare would not be allowed to enter the hospital,” Dr. Quang emphasized.

The Hanoitimes – Hanoi-based Bach Mai Hospital is considered a big and dangerous Covid-19 outbreak.

Deputy Prime Minister Vu Duc Dam has called for mobilization of all resources to stamp out Covid-19 at Bach Mai Hospital in Hanoi, one of the largest of its kind in Vietnam, VnExpress reported.

At an online meeting on March 28, Dam said this was “a very important task” in the coming days and called on the Ministry of Health, Hanoi’s government and Bach Mai Hospital to use all resources to carry out the mission.

Bach Mai Hospital is under lockdown from March 28. Photo: Giang Huy

“Stamping out Covid-19 outbreaks is crucial when it has spread to the community,” Dam said, adding that Vietnam has done a good job in containing Covid-19 outbreaks in provinces of Vinh Phuc and Binh Thuan, and promptly isolating passengers arrived on Vietnam Airlines flight VN0054.

However, two new coronavirus outbreaks in the country, the Buddha bar in Ho Chi Minh City with 13 Covid-19 patients and Bach Mai Hospital with 16, need to be handled with, the deputy PM stressed.

He requested to draw up a list of all people who had been to the hospital since March 12. Localities whose residents had been to Bach Mai hospital must take stronger measures to deal with those cases, Dam said.

For his part, Deputy Minister of Health Nguyen Truong Son said Bach Mai Hospital is considered a big and dangerous Covid-19 outbreak. His ministry has set up a special task force to carry out an epidemiological investigations in the hospital.

All medical staff and patients in the hospital have been quarantined and taken samples. The hospital has also suspended admission of new patients and remained isolated since March 29. The Vietnamese Chemical Army disinfected the entire hospital on March 28 evening.

Bach Mai Hospital is a large healthcare institution and with 10,000-15,000 people visiting every day, the infection can spread not only from patients and medical workers, but also from their relatives, taxi drivers, goods deliverers, among others. Therefore, not only Bach Mai but other hospitals are facing a high risk of infection, Son noted.

He added that doctors and medical staff quarantined at Bach Mai Hospital keep treating inpatients with sufficient equipment and medical supplies provided by the Health Ministry.

Epidemiologists are continuing to investigate the sources of infection from professional patient caregivers at Bach Mai Hospital. Additionally, it is necessary to access the health insurance database to localize and identify people making contact with Covid-19 patients.

As of March 29, Vietnam has reported 188 Covid-19 infection cases in 24 cities and provinces, of them 21 have been cured and discharged from hospital.