Sergei Sobyanin: Biggest COVID-19 intensive care unit opens in Kommunarka

A reserve hospital for coronavirus patients has been established at the medical centre in Kommunarka. Mayor Sergei Sobyanin visited the hospital on 26 October.

The Mayor said that the restrictions in effect in Moscow are producing results. Over the past week, the diagnosis rate has decreased 10 times and the hospital bed occupancy rate has decreased five times.

“However, although lower, this dynamic is still there. It means that in the past week, we have passed the threshold of 10,000 hospital beds occupied. In order to ensure that all Muscovites without exception can receive medical help, we are building reserve units so that medical facilities and doctors involved in elective and emergency care can continue their regular practice,” Sergei Sobyanin said.

The hospital based at one of the country’s main COVID-19 treatment facilities, in Kommunarka, is the latest of the five reserve hospitals to start admitting patients. Despite being a reserve facility, it has all the necessary infrastructure, from utility systems to medicinal gas supplies. “Technology-wise, it is one of the most advanced facilities, similar to the Voronovskaya Hospital – and with even higher capacity. I think that building such a powerful cluster of hospitals has provided us with a safety margin, and guarantees that in the short term, elective care facilities will not be affected and we will be in control of the situation,” Sergei Sobyanin said.

Moscow currently has around 15,000 hospital beds for patients with COVID-19 available at municipal, federal and private inpatient facilities, as well as at the reserve hospitals at VDNKh, Kashirskoye Motorway, in Sokolniki, Krylatskoye and Kommunarka.

“Let’s hope we will not need to use these hospitals to their full capacity. However, we must have a safety margin; therefore, the equipment, the management and the personnel must be ready,” the Mayor said.

The reserve hospital in Kommunarka was built between April and October 2020. It has 1,249 hospital beds, including 919 beds in regular wards and 330 beds in intensive care. The hospital is designed to meet the epidemiological safety requirements and to provide quality medical help. It is equipped with sanitation tunnels and gates; there are wards, treatment rooms, staff rooms, and medical supply and PPE storage facilities. The beds are connected to an oxygen supply and equipped with call buttons. Comfortable conditions for both staff and patients are provided, including Wi-Fi.

Intensive care wards are equipped with sources of pressurised air and vacuum, medical consoles and other necessary equipment. The intensive care wards are located between regular wards, which allows staff to move patients fast and administer timely medical help.

“Honestly, I can’t bring myself to call this hospital temporary because all the infrastructure solutions and especially medical equipment are up to the latest standards, I can say this as a professional doctor. This hospital has the largest number of intensive care beds (over 300) – again, with all the required technology such as oxygen and pressurised gas supply, invasive and non-invasive ventilation – at each of the 300 beds,” commented Denis Protsenko, Chief Physician of City Hospital No. 40 in Kommunarka.

He noted that 900 hospital beds additionally available in the facility make it possible to provide the entire range of medical services, from diagnostics to full-fledged treatment.

The hospital has 399 staff members, including 130 doctors. Medical personnel are provided with tablets connected to IMIAS (the Integrated Medical Information and Analytical System). They can get access to online medical records and test results by scanning QR codes on patients’ bracelets. All this saves a lot of time, helping nurses and doctors to focus on the patients.

The hospital equipment can conduct personalised monitoring of patients’ clinical indicators in real time. Thanks to using modern medical grading, staff can promptly react to any changes in a patient’s condition.

Via the Remote Assistance feature on IMIAS, doctors can convene remote conferences with colleagues from other hospitals to determine the best treatment strategy for complicated cases. Consultations take place via an interactive platform using AR glasses.

The reserve hospital will also have an ER, a mobile CT scanner and an additional laboratory.

Family members and friends can inquire after a patient’s condition by calling the hotline at +7 (495) 744-07-03, every day between 8 am and 9 pm.

The first patients were admitted to the reserve hospital in Kommunarka on 7 October. As of 23 October, 163 patients were undergoing treatment there.

Main COVID-19 hospital

The first stage of the construction of the multidisciplinary hospital in Kommunarka (four buildings with a total area of 86,700 sq m, including a nine-storey building with patient wards) was finished in December 2019. It was scheduled to open in the spring of 2020. However, due to the spread of the novel coronavirus, the decision was made to re-purpose the inpatient facility for patients with symptoms of COVID-19 or a confirmed diagnosis. Kommunarka thus became the first and best known coronavirus hospital in Russia.

The sanitation tunnels and gates installed as part of the adaptation divided the building into clean and contaminated zones. Eight ward units including 60 to 120 beds each (a total of 802 beds) and five intensive care units for 128 patients opened. Since the reserve hospital began operations, the number of available beds has exceeded 2,000, making the medical centre in Kommunarka one of the biggest hospitals in Russia.

The hospital boasts state-of-the-art medical equipment, including three CT scanners, one MRI scanner, 432 ventilators, two extracorporeal membrane oxygenation machines, nine renal replacement therapy machines, and three stationary and 11 mobile X-ray machines. The hospital also has its own laboratory.

A high level of epidemiological safety is ensured thanks to isolated ER wards, separate entrances and exits for admission and release, and a separate entry for medical staff through a sanitation tunnel.

All patient wards are en-suite and equipped with air recirculation units and free Wi-Fi. Patients receive five meals a day based on a special balanced diet. Packages for patients are accepted every day 10 am to 10 pm.

The hospital in Kommunarka has 352 doctors and 537 nurses on staff, not including the reserve hospital. During the initial spread of the infection and the spring peak of the pandemic, they gained unique practical experience in providing medical care to COVID-19 patients. Local doctors were directly involved in developing COVID-19 treatment protocols and recommendations. Their experience later proved helpful to other regions.

Since 1 March 2020, the hospital in Kommunarka has admitted almost 8,400 patients with COVID-19 symptoms. Currently, 910 people are undergoing treatment, including 629 people with confirmed COVID-19. Some 129 patients are being treated in intensive care, including 31 patients on ventilators and 39 on non-invasive ventilation. In the past 24 hours, the hospital has admitted 105 new patients and released 88.