Iligan City hospitals run out of COVID-19 beds as authorities confirm 2 cases of Delta variant

ILIGAN CITY—The Delta variant has been confirmed in two COVID-19 cases in this city, just as most of the hospitals here have announced they are running out of beds.

Dr. Belinda Lim, manager of the Emergency Operation Center Health Cluster (EOCHC) in the city, said the Philippine Genome Center had confirmed the Delta variant in two patients infected with COVID-19.

One of the patients, a resident of the coastal village of Tomas Cabili, visited relatives in Quezon City last month and was admitted to Marawi City’s Amai Pakpak Medical Center when he showed symptoms. He infected seven of his relatives.

Lim, who made the report during the IATF meeting here Monday, identified the other patient only as an employee of the city’s “prestigious” school.

Patrick Nuñez, chair of the local IATF, said they were preparing a contingency plan in case of a surge of COVID 19 infections but admitted that the bed capacity of almost all hospitals in the city was already at a critical level.

On Sunday, the city government advised patients seeking emergency care to look for other hospitals outside the city, as the privately-run Adventist Medical Center (AMC) had run out of beds for COVID-19 patients.

AMC, a private tertiary hospital where most of the severe and critical COVID-19 patients go, also said its healthcare worker staffing had reached critical levels.

The hospital first posted its advisory on a tarpaulin hung Sunday at its gate in Barangay Tibanga Highway. The city government later picked it up and announced it on its social media site.

As of Aug. 14, active cases here have reached 210. Of this, 105 have been admitted to different hospitals in the Bangsamoro and Northern Mindanao regions, while 105 were in isolation facilities, the EOCHC report said.

On Saturday alone, the city had 26 new COVID-19 cases, only three short of the 29 patients on June 19, an all-time high during the surge.

Some patients not accommodated in Iligan found their way to the Amai Pakpak Medical Center (APMC) in Marawi, about 30 kilometers away.

Dr. Shalimar Rakiin, APMC chief, said that of the 94 COVID-19 patients admitted to the APMC as of 4 p.m. on Sunday, 27 were from Iligan City and 23 from other Lanao del Norte towns.

A hospital accredited and supervised by the Department of Health (DOH), APMC reported it was reaching a critical level on June 7 this year, when the number of COVID-19 patients continued to rise.

But the hospital had since added 20 beds, thus allowing it to deal with the recent rise in cases.

Rakiin reminded the public the hospital continued to accept both COVID-19 and non-COVID-19 patients.

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