PH Red Cross field hospitals near full capacity

Patients are watched over by relatives and hospital aides inside the COVID-19 emergency room of the government hospital National Kidney and Transplant Institute (NKTI), which has declared overcapacity amid rising coronavirus disease (COVID-19) infections in Quezon City, Metro Manila, Philippines, April 26, 2021. REUTERS/Eloisa Lopez

MANILA, Philippines — The Philippine Red Cross (PRC)’s emergency field hospitals at the National Kidney and Transplant Institute (NKTI) and the Lung Center of the Philippines (LCP) are nearing full capacity amid a spike in COVID-19 cases.

“We are in a war situation against COVID-19. The health care system in the NCR Plus region is challenged due to the increasing cases of COVID-positive individuals,” Senator Richard Gordon, PRC chairman, and chief executive officer said in a statement on Tuesday.

The 64-bed emergency field hospital at the LCP and NKTI became an extension to help accommodate increasing admissions.

It is equipped with oxygen tanks, an intubation set, an automated external defibrillator, and other basic ward facilities to tend mild to moderate cases.

With this, PRC will be boosting the operations of its field hospitals, and plans to expand it are being worked on.

Earlier, Gordon, who himself was recently afflicted by COVID-19, directed the deployment of the 100-bed emergency field hospital at the LCP and 20-bed capacity at the NKTI due to “overwhelming volume of people needing admission during the surge since last April 2021.”

Further, Gordon mentioned that the PRC is prepared to provide more medical tents and emergency field hospitals should COVID-19 cases continue to surge in the upcoming weeks.

EDV