Frontliners at the Naga City Hospital. Image from Facebook / Naga City Hospital
LEGAZPI CITY — The Department of Health (DOH) said on Monday that COVID-19 referral facilities in Bicol still have sufficient number of beds to accommodate people who are sick with the viral disease.
Edwin Aldrin Lumbo, DOH Bicol Development Management Officer III of the Health Facility Development Unit, in an interview Monday said the bed capacity in Bicol’s three major government hospitals is still adequate to provide the health care needs of COVID-19 patients, having only 32 percent utilization rate or 330 beds occupancy from the 1,030 beds allocated for them.
Lumbo said 25 of 45 beds of the overall capacity for the intensive care units (ICU) are still available, 70 percent of the 420 isolation beds are available and only 25 percent of the 240 ward beds were utilized.
For the mechanical ventilators, only 37 percent of the 36 ventilators are in use, he said.
As of Aug. 8, DOH data said Bicol has recorded 21,958 COVID-19 cases since last year, of which 18,133 have recovered and 838 died. Bicol still has 2,987 active cases.
Risk status
Lumbo said bed capacity utilization are categorized into moderate risk status (60-69 percent utilization rate), high risk (70 – 84 percent rate), and critical status (85 percent and above).
Naga City’s Bicol Medical Center, with 450-bed capacity in its ICU, is running out of beds and on high risk status but Isolation and COVID-19 ward bed are still available. Sixty percent of its mechanical ventilators are being used.
The Bicol Sanitarium Hospital in Cabusao town in Camarines Sur province has both of its only two ICU beds occupied while 10 of 62 beds in the isolation and ward are used. Seventy-five percent of their mechanical ventilators are being used.
The Bicol Regional Training and Teaching Hospital in Legazpi City has only 26 percent or 25 beds of its 96 assigned COVID-19 beds occupied.