With their fingers crossed, hospital managers on Tuesday claimed ready for a possible spike in Covid-19 cases after the holidays with more prepared medical teams and rooms.
This was confirmed by Private Hospital Association of the Philippines (PHAPi) president Dr. Jose de Grano stating that most of their member-hospitals have been mandated to comply with 20 percent of their beds available specifically for Covid-19.
“Our hospitals are ready to admit in accordance with the mandated 20 percent allocation of beds for Covid patients,” he said.
He assured the public that safety standards are in place with separate pathways allotted for Covid and non-Covid cases.
Philippine General Hospital spokesperson Dr. Jonas del Rosario also said that beds allotted based on the mandated capacity rate for both Covid and non-Covid cases are ensured in its facilities.
“The past four weeks, our numbers are slowly decreasing to less than 100 Covid patients in our hospital. Because of that, we have opened some of our non-Covid wards for patients but still, we have retained the number of beds for Covid,” he said.
“So, we’re ready. We’re actually anticipating that there might be an increase during the holidays and even after that… (due to) gatherings,” he added.
In addition to this, he said that they have also allotted a specific team assigned to monitor the expected spike of cases.
Del Rosario hoped that with the constant reminders to the public, cases will remain at a stabilized rate in order for more healthcare workers to dedicate their time even for non-Covid cases.
Earlier government officials, including health experts, have been urging the public to go for alternative means this holiday season. They were advised to celebrate only with members of their household and to avoid large gatherings.
At present, the Philippines has breached the 450,000-mark of Covid-19 cases as the OCTA team warned that it may increase than their higher-end projection of 500,000 infections by year-end.
