Duterte urges to private hospitals to add more beds for COVID-19 patients

MANILA, Philippines — President Rodrigo Duterte on Monday appealed to private hospitals to allocate more of its beds to COVID-19 patients as cases continued to surge nationwide.

“What struck my attention is this appeal to private hospitals to increase the number of beds dedicated to COVID patients. I hope you can set aside more,” Duterte, speaking partly in Filipino, said in a taped speech.

The President made the appeal after the Philippines recorded a record-high number of COVID-19 deaths in a day at 259. The country recorded 4,699 new infections bringing the total number of 265,888.

“I hope you can add [to the number of beds] because still the numbers are increasing. The infections vary. In some cases, and in some provinces or cities, there’s a fast recovery rate, while others are lagging behind, and probably this is because of the prior infection that was not detected during the height of the pandemic,” Duterte said.

“Remember, everybody will remember someday that there was this great epidemic that passed by our lives and we were able to deal it with a lot of mutual help — the help of our countrymen,” he went on.

The Department of Health (DOH) requires private hospitals to allocate 20 percent of their beds for COVID-19 patients while public hospitals are asked to set aside 30 percent.

According to the DOH COVID-19 situationer released Monday night, the country has a utilization rate of 46 percent — or 9,823 COVID-19 beds of 21,500 are occupied.

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