|
ISTANBUL, May 4-- Mehmet Kuyumcu, an orthopedist of a state hospital in Istanbul, wore three layers of protective suits, two pairs of gloves, a facial mask, a goggle, and a face shield with maximum caution before he entered the operating room. Following a series of precise rules for disinfection and sterilization, Kuyumcu and three other medical staff were finally ready to operate a COVID-19 patient with a femur fracture at the Sancaktepe Sehit Prof.Dr. Ilhan Varank Training and Research Hospital in Istanbul. With a death rate below one percent, the hospital has been considered as one of the most successful health care facilities in Turkey in the treatment of COVID-19 patients. For Nurettin Yiyit, the chief physician of the hospital, the success is based on the fact that the hospital starts the treatments of COVID-19 patients at an early stage in the quickest way possible. After the pandemic started to be seen in Turkey in mid-March, the hospital has received a total of 58,000 applications. Nearly 12,000 of them were found as suspicious and further tests were conducted. "So far, 2,500 COVID-19 patients have been treated at the hospital, and the mortality rate is below one percent," the chief doctor told Xinhua. "All patients with the moderate and severe clinical condition and those with additional diseases were hospitalized, and mild cases were followed up on an outpatient basis," he said, adding that contacts of positive cases have been constantly screened in the field and tested. | 
