Nine more hospitals nationwide have reached full bed capacity for cases of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), the Department of Health has announced.
READ: Palace assures hospitals still up to task handling COVID patients
In view of this, DOH is asking hospitals to expand their allocation of intensive care unit (ICU) beds for COVID-19 cases, Undersecretary Leopoldo Vega said on Wednesday.
Vega, in an interview on Unang Hirit, said some hospitals were ignoring the minimum 30 percent ICU bed allocation for COVID-19 cases.
Vega said retained hospitals or health facilities under the DOH were advised to expand up to 60 percent allocation.
The DOH has established a command center where hospitals can refer COVID-19 cases to other hospitals when their ICU bed allocation is already fully occupied, said Vega.
Health Undersecretary Maria Rosario Vergeire, for her past, said all beds allocated for COVID-19 patients had been occupied at the following hospitals:
· University of Santo Tomas Hospital
· F.Y. Manalo Medical Foundation, Inc.
· Bataan General Hospital and Medical Center
· QualiMed Health Network Sta. Rosa
· University of Perpetual Help-Dr. Jose G. Tamayo Medical University Foundation, Inc.
· Trinity Medical Center, Inc.
· Westlake Medical Center
· Antipolo City Medical Hospital
· Ortigas Hospital and Healthcare Center, Inc.
Earlier, several private hospitals said they could no longer accommodate critically ill COVID-19 cases, while others were also nearing full capacity.
At the start of the month, 11 hospitals in Metro Manila said their intensive care unit beds for COVID-19 patients had been filled up.
As of July 13, the DOH said 47 percent of intensive care unit beds for COVID-19 patients nationwide were occupied while 26.3 percent of mechanical ventilators were in use.
READ: NKTI reaches "danger zone" for COVID-19 bed capacity
In Metro Manila, however, the critical care utilization rate had breached the “danger zone” at over 70 percent, officials said.
According to Vega, there should be a balance between the allocation for COVID-19 cases and non-COVID-19 cases so that hospitals could still accommodate other patients.
But the National Kidney and Transplant Institute is having difficulty following the DOH’s suggestion as it would “compromise” non-COVID-19 patients.
In another interview on Dobol B sa News TV, aired nationwide, the Medical City chief medical officer Dr. Rafael Claudio said their health facility had reached its full capacity for COVID-19 cases.
In expanding the allocation, Claudio said the availability of health care workers who will attend to the additional patients, as well as the necessary equipment, should also be considered.
Meanwhile, to address the issue of overworked health care workers and understaffing in hospitals, Vega said the DOH was facilitating augmentation of workforce to the concerned health facilities.
On Tuesday, Private Hospitals Association of the Philippines, Inc. president Dr. Rustico Jimenez said private hospitals were nearing their full capacity for COVID-19 cases.
In rerlated developments, the Philippine General Hospital said on Wednesday it could no longer accept critically-ill COVID-19 patients from other health facilities because its beds were almost full.
As of Wednesday, PGH currently has 196 patients with COVID-19 who occupy about 93 percent of the 210 beds allocated for the respiratory disease, said hospital spokesperson Dr. Jonas Del Rosario, in an interview on ABS-CBN’s TeleRadyo.
About 90 percent of beds at the intensive care unit are also occupied.
The remaining beds there are reserved for those currently confined at the hospital in case their condition worsens, Del Rosario said.
PGH still accepts COVID-19 patients with moderate symptoms, while those with mild symptoms are referred to other hospitals, Del Rosario said.
The recent spike in hospital admissions may be due to ramped up testing for the pathogen, he said.
Meanwhile, the bed allocations for critical COVID-19 patients, including those in intensive care units at the Lung Center of the Philippines are now filled up, the hospital’s spokesperson said on Wednesday.
Dr. Norberto Francisco told ABS-CBN’s TeleRadyo the government-run hospital – which has a 250-bed bed capacity – had dedicated 75 percent of its bed capacity to severe and critical COVID-19 patients.
But because of the pandemic, it converted its rooms that used to occupy up to 8 beds into 1 as COVID patients must be isolated, reducing the hospital’s operational capacity to 169 beds.
READ: Makati Med, St. Luke's QC and Global City now at full capacity for COVID-19
Francisco said more COVID-19 patients were arriving compared to those being discharged.
However, even as the number of confirmed cases continued to increase, Francisco noted the mortality rate had not.
At the same time, he encouraged the public to follow health protocols set to prevent the spread of the virus, like wearing a face mask, observing physical distancing, and staying at home.
The Philippines has logged 57,545 confirmed COVID-19 cases, as of July 14, of which, 35,483 are active.
The active cases are broken down: 91.4 percent have mild symptoms, 7.7 percent are asymptomatic, 0.4 percent have severe symptoms, and 0.5 percent are in critical condition.
Meanwhile, Vergeire said the DOH had introduced a new procedure in reporting COVID-19 cases for testing laboratories to address their failure to submit the list of cases on time.
During a virtual news conference, Vergeire said laboratories were struggling because their personnel processing tests were also the ones encoding the results.
Meanwhile, the DOH said the large COVID-19 testing backlog at the Research Institute for Tropical Medicine was due to broken equipment, increase in sample submissions, and understaffing as a number of employees were undergoing quarantine.
Vergeire said one or two of the machines used for COVID-19 testing were also broken and would need to be fixed.
Besides scaling down, she said laboratories in the country also had to deal with more samples being submitted.
The DOH also said the agency’s licensing group was inspecting different laboratories amid reports that non-licensed facilities were conducting COVID-19 Reverse Transcription-Polymerase Chain Reaction (RT-PCR) testing.
The plan for inspection came after the DOH discovered that Clearbridge Medical Philippines in Quezon City announced last July 7 that it was open for COVID-19 rapid and RT-PCR testing despite not being certified to do so.
In a statement, however, Clearbridge Medical apologized for the misinterpretation of its RT-PCR testing.
Clearbridge Medical said it failed to mention in its post that the facility was in partnership with Safeguard DNA Diagnostics Inc., which is a DOH-licensed COVID-19 testing laboratory.
Clearbridge Medical also clarified that it only conducted the swabbing, while testing of specimens were performed only by licensed professionals from Safeguard DNA Diagnostics Inc.
Meanwhile, the DOH is looking into reports from other countries regarding COVID-19’s supposed long-term effects on patients who have recovered from it although so far, in the Philippines, no case has been reported.
Vergiere, in an online media forum, said the DOH had not seen the same observation yet with local recovered patients.
Vergeire said recovered patients in the country actually were in good health condition and had returned to their regular routines.