While most of us were relaxing last week, the Tet holiday kept medical professionals working hard, as nearly 90,000 people were hospitalized between February 7 and 9 alone, according to the Ministry of Health.
Vietnamese medical facilities admitted tens of thousands of patients due to traffic accidents, food poisoning, physical altercations, firework injuries and more, reports Tuoi Tre. Of those patients, health officials recorded 88 fatalities – a 1% drop from last year – however the number of patients in emergency care rose by 113%.
On the road, traffic accidents killed 300 travelers during this year's nine-day holiday, according to statistics from the National Traffic Safety Committee.
Police across the country recorded a total of 408 road accidents over Tet, reports Tuoi Tre, resulting in 300 fatalities as well as 308 injured motorists.
While this number remains high, it was an improvement upon last year's traffic-related Tet fatalities: the Year of the Monkey saw 128 fewer accidents, 17 fewer deaths and 129 fewer injuries than the Year of the Goat.
This year's Tet travel also included the standard overcrowding of buses and reckless driving that characterizes the country's annual human migration. According to Thanh Nien, traffic police across the Vietnam found vehicles were routinely overloaded with passengers and often exceeded speed limits while on the highway. One Saigon-bound bus, for instance, was pulled over while traveling 82 kilometers per hour – far surpassing the speed limit in the area – and contained 60 passengers despite its 43-passenger limit. Authorities fined the driver VND18 million for the two infractions.
Elsewhere in the country, authorities from Thanh Hoa province collected a total of VND200 million in fines over the holiday, much of it from similar offenses.
An additional 5,100 people were also admitted to local hospitals after physical confrontations. According to Tuoi Tre, 13 such patients did not survive, doubling the fatality rate from last year.
[Photo via VietQ]
