HCMC shuts down main Covid ICU

“The ICU has accomplished its mission,” Nguyen Thi Huynh Mai, chief of office at the city Department of Health, told reporters on Thursday.

But the closing date has yet to be announced.

Established at the Oncology Hospital 2 in Thu Duc City last July when the pandemic was at its peak, the facility has 1,000 beds and medical workers drawn from more than 20 hospitals across the country.

It has treated more than 5,000 patients in severe condition.

The number of patients requiring intensive care has now fallen almost to zero, Mai said.

After the closure, the hospital will resume its original task of treating cancer patients.

There are two other ICUs for Covid treatment at field hospitals Nos. 14 and 16 in districts Tan Phu and 7, which have 600 beds in total, besides 200 ICU beds each at the HCMC Hospital for Tropical Diseases and Cho Ray Hospital.

HCMC will also close Field Hospital No. 12, which was set up to admit patients with the Omicron strain of Covid, and field hospitals Nos. 6 and 8 also because of the lack of need.

The Ministry of Health has mandated that Omicron patients can be treated at home or private facilities just like those infected by other coronavirus strains.

“If necessary, the city will reopen the field hospitals within 24 hours,” Mai said.

HCMC was the epicenter of the country’s fourth wave that began in April last year, with 515,109 cases and 20,244 deaths so far. But now there are only 618 infected people, 88 of them in severe condition.

The city of 13 million has administered two doses of vaccines to 7.3 million people and a third to 4.5 million.