With the arduous test of gold, the General Director of FV affirmed the dedication and devotion of the medical team during the two turbulent years before the Covid-19 pandemic, along with the bravery, experience and dedication of the team. Agreeing to overcome challenges is the premise for FV to be stronger and stronger than ever.
The images of patients sitting and lying all over the corridor, the stretchers stretching to the parking lot under the expanded roofs, the sound of ambulance sirens tearing their ears endlessly along with the cries of pain and loss of life. The cool, self-sacrificing moments…, the undecided decisions “to accept or not to accept any patients” are still like yesterday, will forever be etched in the mind of every member of FV team. .
Patients waiting to be hospitalized at the Emergency ward, FV . Hospital
Who can forget the moment when the Covid-19 epidemic broke out violently, the hospital overload, the lack of resources, the rapidly increasing rate of Covid-19 patients spreading across the country. , heavy pressure on the health system of the country. Patients do not know where to go, panic and fear are extremely high while medical resources are exhausted, many hospitals have to temporarily close because of the isolation of F0 & F1, difficulties and difficulties.
There were times when FV’s human resources lost nearly 200 employees at the same time due to the isolation of F0 and F1 according to regulations, but FV was determined not to close, the remaining employees worked with longer days, many more time to “determine to try not to refuse any patients”, as Dr. Jean-Marcel Guillon – General Director of FV guided and encouraged.
Never before has FV witnessed a crowd of patients at the Emergency Department, not to mention the number of patients who had to be treated on stretchers from the corridor to the parking lot under makeshift tents. . Every time the hospital opened more rooms to receive Covid-19 patients, that room was full, the phone kept ringing: “Doctor, save my mother, save my child”.
“I had to make very painful decisions, many times I saw patients die in the ambulance when the doctor arrived because there was no room to accept the patient. These images will forever haunt me. I am powerless as a doctor.”
Head of Emergency Department of FV . Hospital
“There are many situations where we don’t know which patient to get into the ICU first to save their life… Resources are limited, and we have to make difficult choices. It will be an obsession that will never be forgotten.”
Head of Anesthesiology and Resuscitation Department
The patient is being monitored in the isolation ward of the FV . Emergency and Intensive Care Department
The team of doctors, nurses, aides, even other support workers who have never treated and cared for this disease, are all new, they have been transferred from other departments to structure. During this period, it became a new Department called the Department of Covid-19 Treatment, led by Doctor Ho Minh Tuan, Head of the Department of Interventional Cardiology, volunteering to assume the role of head of the department. They all work, study, through books on the internet, through a top-down process of dissemination, through treating patients.
Ms. Chu Thi Nguyet Anh – Nursing Head of Internal Medicine said: “Nurses for many years are now considered newcomers. Everything is new, so everyone has to update, do and learn from reality. Some people have only been apprenticed for 2 or 3 days before they have to face the very harsh reality inside the patient’s door.”
During those many months, members of the Board of Directors and hundreds of other medical staff did not go home, but were on duty at the hospital.
Doctor Vu Truong Son – Head of the Department of Infection Prevention and Control is the person who plays the role of every corner, everywhere, all the time to solve and raise issues related to Covid-19 infection control from the community. hospital and vice versa. Dr. Son hardly sleeps, everyone can see this young doctor now in the Covid-19 treatment area, later seen in the Emergency Department, and briefly went with his teammates to get vaccines outside. community.
The team worked and forgot about the fear that they and their families might get infected. During those unforgettable days, a great source of spiritual encouragement for FV’s frontline team was the smiles upon discharge from the hospital of Covid patients, after a resilient journey to overcome death with the spirit of ” Not only are these examples an encouragement for the doctors, nurses, and medical staff working day and night at the Covid-19 Treatment Department, they are also an inspiration to fight. was spread to many SARS-CoV-2 patients who were still in hospital beds at that time.
Patients over 90 years old discharged from hospital after winning Covid-19
FV is a private hospital, at the end of June 2021, the private hospital block has not been assigned to receive and treat Covid-19 patients, as usual the FV emergency gate is still open and patients are flocking, because they there’s nowhere left to go. Doctor Jean-Marcel Guillon, general director ordered “to receive patients, they need me and the Government and the medical profession need me”.
FV has been and is always ready to deal with natural disaster risks, including epidemics, so that when the Government needs it, it is necessary to act together. The entire team quickly organized FV into a split hospital: one half treated Covid-19 patients, which required special requests, and the other half took in regular patients and mothers giving birth (not infected with Covid-19).
Temporary tent area at FV . emergency area
Treating Covid-19 patients means equipping enough negative pressure treatment rooms, installing liquefied oxygen systems, purchasing machines and oxygen tanks enough to treat a relative number of patients, separate and separate entrance to minimize infection for common patients, which means quick training of staff who have never treated infected patients and a high mortality rate at a dizzying rate. such as Covid-19 patients, and fully equipped with protective equipment to prevent infection during treatment (PPE).
In response to the massive influx of patients, the Emergency Department built more rooms, bought more containers to make reception rooms, and set up makeshift tents, which still did not have enough room for patients. The history of development and formation of FV has never seen patients lying on the stretcher from the corridor to the parking lot, but still not enough.
And yet, the areas for vaccination, taking samples for Covid-19 testing, the temporary reception area for F0 patients at the Emergency Department are also set up separately outside the hospital building to serve these needs.
If you want to receive Covid-19 patients, you must have a team. Head of Cardiology Department – MSc – Doctor Ho Minh Tuan bravely took on the additional task of Head of the Covid-19 Treatment Department. Under the management and direction of the Board of Directors, Dr. Tuan quickly had a team of human resources transferred from other departments, and at the same time encouraged and called a large number of doctors in the non-nasal departments. He volunteered to participate in the treatment at FV’s Covid-19 Department – where every day was a battle with fierce life and death and almost had to eat – sleep – work on the spot.
If you want to receive Covid-19 patients, you must have a team. Head of Cardiology Department – MSc Ho Minh Tuan bravely took on the additional task of Head of the Covid-19 Treatment Department. Under the management and direction of the Board of Directors, Dr. Tuan quickly had a team of human resources transferred from other departments, and at the same time encouraged and called a large number of doctors in the non-nasal departments. He volunteered to participate in the treatment at FV’s Covid-19 Department – where every day was a battle with fierce life and death and almost had to eat – sleep – work on the spot.
The Internal Medicine inpatient area becomes a place to treat Covid-19 patients. Initially, the department had 4 rooms, later increased to 9 rooms with 22 beds. At the beginning of July 2021, when the epidemic began to peak, the Covid-19 treatment department was expanded to cover the entire boarding area on the 4th floor with 63 beds for people without ventilators and 15 beds for HFNC (High Flow) support. Nasal Cannula – Nasal Catheter High Flow Oxygen Therapy).
IMPRESSIVE NUMBERS
Due to the difficult situation in moving, FV medical staff had to take advantage of an ambulance to return after a day of vaccination in the community.
FV staff perform vaccinations at SECC center, District 7 for the community
In the last days of July 2022, when having received two doses of vaccines organized by the French Government, Pier Laurenza, a French photographer and patient of FV, assessed the professionalism in FV organizing vaccination. -Please for the French community, he asked FV to let him stay in FV, to follow the team silently so that he could record the historical moments of the FV team. When asked, “Aren’t you afraid of getting infected?”, he replied, “I’ve been vaccinated with 2 vaccines, the frontline team receiving treatment for patients is not afraid, why should I be afraid?”
