The City Health Services Office announced there are some 323 isolation beds that had been prepared for Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) patients in a number of identified isolation facilities in the city.
However, City Health Officer Dr. Rowena P. Galpo stated that 269 beds are already occupied, 35 beds are available for confirmed cases while 19 beds are reportedly unavailable for various reasons at the moment.
She said that in the case of the city isolation unit at the former Sto. Niño Hospital, there are 95 isolation beds available for occupancy but 80 beds are already occupied, 8 beds are available for occupancy while 7 beds are unavailable.
For the Roxas Hall at the Baguio Teachers Camp which has some 116 available isolation beds, Galpo reported that some 108 beds are already occupied, 3 beds are still available for occupancy and 5 beds are not available.
In the case of the Superintendent’s quarters and Hernandez Hall that have a combined 112-bed capacity, the city health officer reported that some 81 beds are already occupied, 24 beds are still available for occupancy while there are 7 beds unavailable at the moment.
Galpo explained that the day-to-day available beds could increase depending on the number of confined COVID patients that will recover, thus, the occupancy of the city’s isolation facilities is still within the warning to critical zone.
According to her, the capacity of the city isolation unit is expected to increase in the coming weeks because of the ongoing rehabilitation and upgrading of the facility that is targeted to have a 290-bed capacity by the end of the month.
Earlier, the city government got the required funding support from the public works department that is now being used for the upgrading of the existing city isolation unit to increase its capacity so that the city health care system will not be compromised by the surge in the number of daily COVID cases.
The medical officer claimed that the daily cases in the city are a product of the ongoing aggressive contact tracing coupled with the effective expanded testing of the vulnerable sectors to identify the carriers of the deadly virus for these to be immediately isolated while their close contacts will be required to undergo the required 14-day quarantine.
She claimed the huge number of cases being discharged from the isolation facilities had greatly contributed in making available more isolation beds for the increasing number of COVID patients daily as per the assessment of the assigned health personnel in the different facilities.
Galpo emphasized that the city is ready for any eventuality, especially in the sudden surge in the number of COVID patients, because there are still available rooms for those individuals that are symptomatic and who need to undergo close medical supervision. By Dexter A. See