(MENAFN- Trend News Agency)
It took less than two months for Turkey to construct two fully
equipped hospitals in Istanbul in response to the emergency
stemming from the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. Istanbul was a hot
spot of the pandemic then with the highest number of cases. For
hospitals, which gave a lifeline to the health care system in the
city, the burden of treating coronavirus cases is now gradually
easing, Trend reports
citing Daily
Sabah .
Their administrators say that they could always function as
“emergency hospitals” in case of a new surge in the pandemic or any
other future situation but, in the meantime, they will mostly cater
to patients suffering from other illnesses.
The hospitals, named after professors Murat Dilmener and Feriha
Oz, two prominent physicians who succumbed to the coronavirus, were
constructed in Yeshilkoy on Istanbul's European side and Sancaktepe
on the Asian side.
Professor Gokhan Tolga Adash, chief physician of Professor Murat
Dilmener Emergency Hospital, says they provide health care services
to people suffering from other illnesses and conditions nowadays
but there are“plans in place” that can convert the hospital into
an emergency hospital“in just a few hours” in the event of a new
pandemic or disaster.
The two hospitals have served more than 1 million outpatients
and over 50,000 patients who needed hospitalization, including some
9,000 patients in need of intensive care, since they opened two
years ago. Today, there are less than 50 COVID-19 patients in both
hospitals while the number of people in intensive care due to the
coronavirus is around 20. Intensive care units, the main components
of the hospitals in the early days of the pandemic since the
initial strain required intensive care, are now open to other
patients. Surgery rooms have also been opened.
Health authorities hope that they will add to the capacity of
hospitals in Istanbul, especially at a time when hospitals are
expecting an influx in light of decreasing coronavirus cases.
Authorities and experts say most people avoided visiting hospitals
over the two years of the pandemic and some even delayed their
surgeries throughout this period. With a drop in the cases,
hospitals are again viewed as“safe” and more patients are expected
to apply, putting a strain on the health care sector whose members
worked long hours and mentally suffered during the tough times of
the pandemic.
Though they are informally dubbed“pandemic hospitals,” the two
facilities are more than that, with wards and surgery rooms for
different branches, from internal medicine to maternity wards and
interventional radiology. In Murat Dilmener hospital, the number of
“non-COVID-19” admissions has already risen to around 800
daily.
Tags:
- Turkey
- coronavirus COVID-19
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