More than 100 Vietnamese people infected with Coronavirus in Moscow are calling for help from the community and the Vietnamese Embassy in the context of the health system in the Russian capital is seriously overloaded by the pandemic.
Some people who have had a positive test result still cannot go to hospital for treatment and have to learn for themselves home remedies.
“My family tested 6 people positive, only 1 person was hospitalized and a doctor asked the remaining to isolate at home and a doctor would come to visit but after almost 2 days no one came. I hope the community who knows my prescriptions will go to buy,” said a Vietnamese in Russia calling for help to the Vietnamese community and Embassy on social media on April 16.
As described, this Vietnamese family has a pregnant woman and a young child of 14 months. The pregnant woman has mild cough symptoms, while the husband has chest tightness and a low fever. Everyone else has a cough or sore throat.
Many Vietnamese who have or suspected of being infected with Coronavirus have said it is difficult to access the health system for testing and treatment, even when calling the emergency number 03.
A woman who requested an abbreviation, N.B.H, infected with Covid-19, being treated at a Moscow hospital, told VOA that she had to go through an intermediary medical service to get treatment.
“I did not call directly from home. People who called from home had to wait a long time, from morning to afternoon to come. Sometimes people answered that the hospital was overloaded, so I went to the hospital to take a lung scan, the results were always there and the hospital called me. But even the hospital called, I had to wait 3, 4 hours to be admitted to the hospital.”
Ms. H. said she was admitted to the hospital in a state of severe pneumonia, with many spots under her lungs. The woman had to pay 8,450 rubles (about $120) for a lung scan to get free direct treatment at a state hospital.
A Vietnamese doctor, who asked not to be named, is currently helping Vietnamese patients infected with the corona virus in Moscow, confirming with VOA that there is an overload of the health system there so affects many Vietnamese people. It is difficult to get necessary and timely medical assistance.
Many people are instructed to self-treat at home if they do not have serious illness.
“Imagine if a person with breathing difficulties had to wait for emergency for 4 to 5 hours, then of course people would have some criticism for the health system,” the Vietnamese doctor told VOA.
According to him, patients infected with Covid-19 in Russia have two options, either to state hospitals for free treatment, or to private hospitals for treatment costs of about $1,000 a day. Very few Vietnamese in Moscow choose to go to a private hospital when the average cost of treatment is about $15,000 per case, which is quite high compared to the income of many Vietnamese.
On April 15, the Vietnamese Embassy in the Russian Federation said it had sent a diplomatic note to local authorities to request support for Vietnamese citizens to be examined, tested and treated for Covid-19 on time.
According to the statistics of Vietnamese agencies, as of April 15, there were about 100 cases of Vietnamese people in Russia hospitalized to treat for Covid-19. Of these, at least 80 cases in Moscow reported receiving a positive result for the Wuhan virus.
However, according to a Vietnamese doctor in Moscow, the number of infected Vietnamese is estimated to have been around 160 so far, amid the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic that is spreading rapidly in the Russian capital.
The Vietnamese doctor himself has received more than 50 cases of reporting symptoms of infection and needs help. Among those he helped hospitalize, two were severely hospitalized in an intensive care unit and on a ventilator.
Representatives of Vietnamese communities in the city of St. St. Petersburg of Russia has donated the City’s Pokrovsk Hospital 660 disposable medical socks, turtlenecks for physicians who have direct contact with patients with Coronavirus.
On April 17, the Russian Federation confirmed 4,070 new corona virus infections of the day, bringing the total number of official infections in the country to 32,008 cases, with 273 deaths.
Russian President Vladimir Putin announced that Russia would postpone activities to celebrate May 9 Victory Day, to mark the 75th anniversary of World War II victory, including the parade of the Red Square, due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on April 16 that Russia would receive breathing machines offered by US President Donald Trump, in case of necessity, to limit the spread of the disease.
In early April, a Russian military plane transferred breathing apparatus and medical supplies to New York, after Putin and Trump telephoned.
On April 5, Mayor of Moscow Sergei Sobyanin said that the city is one of the highest risk groups of the virus infection in Russia.
Speaking on Russia 1, Sobyanin explained that the situation is due to the fact that a large number of people go through Moscow or travel abroad. Because of the large number of patients being treated in the city’s hospitals and health facilities, Moscow has adopted the “most stringent regulations” to address the situation.
The Russian capital is preparing about 20,000 patient beds to accept patients infected with Coronavirus.
“If we maintain social distance, work remotely, reduce the burden of exposure – which contributes to the spread of infection, we will do a great job in eradicating,” said Moscow mayor.
On April 18, within 24 hours, the country recorded another 4,785 cases of Covid-19, bringing the total number of cases to 36,793. Another 40 deaths due to the disease, bring the total number of deaths to 313.
More than 129,000 people in Russia are currently under medical surveillance due to suspicion of infection with the virus.
On April 17, Deputy Mayor of Moscow in charge of social affairs Anastasia Rakova warned: “Going ahead will be the most difficult period for us. The highest incidence can occur in the next 2-3 weeks.”
Lenta.ru, meanwhile, said that Moscow has mobilized the entire health system in the fight against Covid-19 and that federal health centers are also redeploying to accommodate the victims of the disease.
“Up to now, 80% of patients of Covid-19 are under the age of 60,” said Anna Popova, head of the Federal Monitoring Service for the Protection of Consumer Rights and Human Health (Rospotrebnadzor).
“In the age structure of infected cases, 80% are people under 60 years old, 5% are children, and only 15% are people over 60 years old,” Popova told reporters.
According to her, these are significant figures, as they indicate that the older generation in Russia has been fully protected. They stay at home and adhere to social spacing more than young people so they are less likely to be infected, Ms. Popova said.
Currently the death rate on the total number of infections in Russia is quite low at only 0.8%.
President Putin declared: “must be absolutely ready to fight for the life of every citizen“
According to RIA on April 17, Putin presided over a meeting on the construction and restructuring of health facilities in the areas in the context of the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic.
He said that the risk of disease spread is very high, the current peak has not yet arrived. He emphasized the number of new infections is increasing not only in Moscow but also in many other localities.
The President directs all regions across the country to be absolutely ready to fight for the life of every citizen. In his speech, Mr. Putin also expressed his belief that the Ministry of Defense will complete the construction of 16 centers for the treatment of Covid-19 on time.
In addition, as of April 28, it is necessary to prepare an additional 95 thousand specialized beds.
On March 27, the Central Bank of Russia announced that it would support its small and medium-sized enterprises 150 billion rubles ($ 1.92 billion) to pay employees.
This is part of the government’s measures to support businesses affected by the influenza pandemic.
The Russian Central Bank will also provide 4%/year preferential interest rates to banks to ensure the payment of salaries to employees in the context of the closure of many Russian businesses in the period of a one-week break, a measure to limit the spread of the Covid-19 pandemic.
In addition, to support the liquidity of the market, the Central Bank of Russia announced that it would provide 500 billion rubles for activities of buying and reselling term securities used in the market after calculating. to non-working days, from March 30 to April 3.
Putin said that it could take less than 2-3 months to cope with the Covid-19 pandemic.
In a meeting with Russian businesses in Novo-Ogaryovo – the presidential suburban work area on March 26, Mr. Putin said: “We will certainly overcome (this situation), and I hope that it may be sooner than what you said” when answering the question of one of the participants in the meeting about whether the Covid-19 will be stopped in 2 months.
To prevent the spread of the pandemic, Putin gave people a full pay-off in April, while most areas of the country applied mandatory self-quarantine.
At the request of the Russian Government, the Ministry of Defense has deployed emergency operations headquarters to prevent the penetration and infection of the Covid-19 in the Armed Forces, establishing 49 mobile sanitary epidemiological groups to identify virus carriers and organize timely responses.
According to Minister Shoigu, currently the most important task is to build and operate 16 multi-functional health centers in the Western, Southern, Central and Eastern military regions. Contractors have started work on all construction sites and facilities are expected to be put into operation from April 20 to May 15, respectively.
The spread of Wuhan pneumonia in Russia is becoming more and more serious, certainly in the coming time the hospitals here will suffer more serious overload, while the Democratic and Liberal countries in the world have had the huge repatriation program to bring their citizens from different places back to their homeland to avoid pandemics and treatment. Vietnam’s authorities were very passive and almost elusive, leaving their citizens alone in danger.
The Communist Party of Vietnam has requested its extended arm organizations such as the Fatherland Front or associations close to the embassy in foreign countries to organize donations events to collect money in this very difficult time from overseas Vietnamese, with the aim of polishing politics with the host countries.
The heartless and barbaric of the Communist regime in Hanoi has no end.
Trung Nam from Da nang – Thoibao.de (Translated)
