Changing approaches to provision of medical care reduced burden on bed capacity of Almaty — Nadyrov

In Almaty, approaches have been changed in all areas, starting from emergency medical care, the work of polyclinics and hospitals. The city hospitals are divided according to the severity of the patients. This was announced in an interview with PrimeMinister.kz by the Head of Almaty City Department of Public Health Kamalzhan Nadyrov.

The city has built a systematic work on the organization of medical care, starting from emergency medical care, the work of polyclinics and hospitals. If earlier clinics were divided into provisional and infectious diseases hospitals, today they are divided from the severity of patients.

“We have divided them into three echelons. Clinics of the first echelon are clinics that have the best material and technical base, where the intensive care service is more prepared, there is the necessary set of specialists. Second-tier clinics also have specialists, but the number of intensive care beds is less. In third-tier clinics, we hospitalize patients with relatively mild and moderate severity of the disease. This division by streams allowed us to systematically build the route of patients,” Nadyrov informed.

According to him, today in the city there is an increase in the number of beds and an increase in recovered patients.

“If earlier the percentage of bed occupancy at its peak reached almost 90%, now this figure is less than 50%. Every second bed is free today, but despite this, we continue to increase the bed reserve,” said the head of the Public Health Department of Almaty.

Also, the approaches to providing medical care at the PHC level have changed, special mobile teams have been created that work only with patients with CVI.

“Today there are 72 mobile teams, the number of doctors and nursing staff has reached 400 people. Previously there were 200 people. The task of mobile teams is to keep patients at the PHC level as much as possible, that is, to prevent the development of complications and not get to the next level — inpatient,” he said.

At the same time, the approach to ambulance work has changed in the city. Today, an ambulance, arriving to patients, has a developed checklist on hand, by which it is possible to objectively assess the patient's current condition. Depending on the severity of the disease, the ambulance decides which of the clinics to hospitalize.

It is worth noting that the number of medical organizations involved in the fight against COVID-19 is growing. To date, the city has deployed about 6 thousand bed capacity, which employs 4,440 medical workers.

“We are simultaneously working on the issue of mobilizing medical personnel, because we are faced with the task of increasing the number of beds to at least 7,700. To date, we have received about 1,500 doctors. A lot of preparatory work is also being done with them. They are trained in the issues of infectious safety, patient management, etc. In this regard, we have created a special educational and clinical center to train such specialists,” he said.

In addition, the city administration is considering all options to increase the number of beds. A hospital has been opened in the city on the basis of the large ice palace "Halyk Arena", where 1,000 beds have already been placed. There are also plans to bring medical gases, oxygen there and deploy a full-fledged intensive care unit.

“In addition to medical organizations, we studied other objects, in particular, stopped at one of the social facilities, which was originally built as a center for the treatment of neuropsychiatric diseases. We studied the entire infrastructure and realized that it is ideal for a medical facility and re-profiling. Corresponding work is already underway. It will be a full-fledged hospital with 500 beds, which we plan to put into operation in September. Absolutely all the requirements of infectious safety will be observed there," Nadyrov summed up.

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