Georgetown: Minister of Health, Dr. Frank Anthony says the COVID-19 Task Force has deliberated on possible measures to be put in place, to support the Infectious Diseases Hospital at Liliendaal, in the event of escalating COVID-19 cases.
During Tuesday’s COVID-19 Update, Minister Anthony said the Government has been making COVID-19 vaccines available for every adult, and now children 12 to 17 years old, to reduce the spread of the deadly disease.
However, with the Delta variant emerging, contingency measures needed to be explored.
“So, we are getting more cases, right now we have 1933 active cases, so that’s a high number, we also have over the last 24 hours we would have seen a 145 active cases, new cases being discovered, and so the numbers are climbing, we are seeing more people getting infected and it is also very worrying because if we don’t manage this carefully our hospitals can easily become overwhelmed.
“We have 111 persons in hospitals and as you can see that number is going up on a daily basis. We have 80 persons at the Ocean View facility, we can accommodate about 200 persons at Ocean View. We have right now 33 persons in the ICU, we have capacity for about 40 in the ICU. We are working to expand that so that we can probably add another 10 beds, if it becomes necessary,” Minister Anthony said.
The health minister said all options are being explored to safeguard citizens, and persons visiting the country.
“So, it is going to be challenging going forward as we get more and more hospitalisation. We have already spoken about other contingencies, and if it becomes necessary, close some of the services at some other hospitals and convert those hospitals solely for COVID hospital patients.
“Then of course we will activate the field hospital well. So, we have considered some of the next steps in case the cases go up,” Dr. Anthony stated.
While sections of regional hospitals have been outfitted to accommodate COVID-19 patients, the Infectious Diseases Hospital is the main institution retrofitted to treat COVID-19 patients on a long-term basis.
To date, 313,469 persons in Guyana have received their first dose of a COVID-19 vaccine, while 161, 022 persons are fully vaccinated.
