(Baonghean)-Every year, from mid-March to early April, the transitional season, the number of hospitalized children always reaches a record high. This year, from April 10 to 14 alone, Nghe An Children's Hospital received nearly 1,700 children for examination.

Among the children brought in for examination, 250 cases had to be hospitalized, mainly children with viral fever, measles rash, Rubella, diarrhea, respiratory infections... With a total of 270 beds, the hospital had to be flexible to receive 370 patients. There were many cases where children had to share a bed, not to mention each child had 1-3 adults accompanying them to take care of them. Therefore, the common image at the hospital was crowded hallways, with many extra beds, adults crowded together waiting, worried, the sound of coaxing mixed with the sound of children crying...

The hallway was packed.

Inquiring at the Department of Infectious Diseases - a department with the most pediatric patients during this time - we were told by the head doctor Nguyen Van Son: On the busiest day, his department receives about 60 patients for examination and treatment. They had to add 4 more beds in the hallway (the department has 30 beds) but the patients still had to share beds.

Patients mainly suffered from high fever, convulsions, respiratory infections, rash fever and some dangerous cases of encephalitis due to complications from Rubella and viral encephalitis. During this time, some epidemics also broke out such as chickenpox, mumps, measles... with a large number of seriously ill children. The hospital also received many cases of patients from Ha Tinh (villages neighboring Vinh city) and even from neighboring Laos.

A child with chickenpox.

To "cope" with the large number of patients, when the season begins to change, the Infectious Diseases Department in particular and the Children's Hospital in general, in addition to adding more beds, have increased medicine, equipment, mobilized appropriate human resources between departments, rooms, and divisions, increased on-duty human resources during holidays and days off...

According to Dr. Son, during the transitional season, when many diseases are at risk of breaking out, the most important thing is to keep children clean, limit contact, wear masks when going out, and fully vaccinate them. Pay special attention to children with high fever and convulsions, which are very susceptible to recurrence; when children have a fever, they should not be treated at home but should be examined by a medical professional.

In fact, the Department of Infectious Diseases has received and treated many cases of patients who arrived late, after complications or when the disease had become severe, such as the case of Le Thuy Trang (10 months old), from Nghi Xuan, Nghi Loc, who was hospitalized on April 13 in a state of continuous convulsions, with her whole body turning purple due to complications of encephalitis. In addition, it is also very important to ensure the nutritional regimen for the children.

PTV