In Caloocan hospital, most COVID patients are its own front-liners

Health-care workers hospitalized for COVID-19 have outnumbered regular patients at a government-run medical facility in Caloocan City.

As of Thursday, of the 353 COVID-hit patients admitted at Dr. Jose N. Rodriguez Memorial Hospital and Sanitarium, also known as Tala hospital, 212 are health-care front-liners, according to the director, Dr. Fritz Famaran.

The total number reflected an increase by 103, or 41 percent, since Tuesday.The public hospital has a 520-bed capacity allocated for COVID-19 patients.

Of the 141 patients who are nonhealth personnel, Famaran said, 80 percent have been fully vaccinated against the virus while 15 percent were only “partially vaccinated,” or had received only the first dose. Five percent of them have not been vaccinated at all.

Even though most of the admitted patients were Tala workers, Famaran clarified that the hospital was not yet experiencing any manpower shortage.

Gym repurposed

“With the current trend, expect an increase in the number of admissions,” Famaran told the Inquirer in a Viber message. “[This is] alarming since transmission of the disease is quite fast.”

In Quezon City, the National Kidney and Transplant Institute (NKTI) was treating 99 patients admitted for COVID-19 as of Thursday.

The latest total was triple the number of patients on Monday—33. On Tuesday, the admissions stood at 61.

Due to the increase, NKTI again had to convert its gym into a COVID-19 ward after using up all the 82 beds initially reserved for such patients, according to the institute’s executive director, Dr. Rose Marie Liquete.The NKTI official earlier said 34 of its health-care workers had been infected with the virus and were either undergoing quarantine at home or in a facility.