Ospital ng Muntinlupa declares overcapacity of COVID-19 patients

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MANILA, Philippines – Despite expansion in its hospital facilities, Ospital ng Muntinlupa has declared overcapacity of COVID-19 patients, hospital Director Dr. Edwin Dimatatac said on Wednesday.

Dimatatac said that they can no longer accommodate more patients as the emergency room was already full and they cannot provide extra rooms for these patients.

“‘Yun nga po, nabanggit po natin na pinalaki po natin ang ating capacity para lalong mas marami po ang maaccommodate pero we can only accommodate so much in-extend na po natin nagdagdag na na rin po tayo ng manpower,” he said in an interview with ABS-CBN’s Teleradyo.

(That’s why, we have mentioned that we have expanded our capacity to accommodate more patients. But we can only accommodate so much, we also extended and put additional manpower.)

Ospital ng Muntinlupa earlier announced that the hospital has 111-percent occupancy of COVID-19 patients and the intensive care unit (ICU) was at 142 percent.

The hospital only has 12 beds allocated for COVID-19 in the ICU but is already catering 17 patients.

Dimatatac said that these numbers indicate that the COVID-19 situation is “worse” than the previous year.

“Ang ICU po namin noong nakaraang taon ay 3 o 5 lang. Ngayon po nagiging 17. Ang ibig sabihin nito mas malala po ang COVID ngayon, mas marami pong nagiging critical so mas lalong maging maingat,” he said.

(Last year, we only had three or five in the ICU. Now we have 17. This means that the COVID situation now is worse as many were critical, so [we] need to be extra careful.)

He also warned the public to be “more careful” and follow the minimum public health standards as most of the hospitals have declared full capacity for patients infected with coronavirus.

Meanwhile, he said that the number of infections among hospital employees decreased compared to last year as they were “more aware” in handling the situation and they were “extra careful.”

Dimatatac also raised his concern regarding the lack of supplies of the medicine needed for the COVID-19 patients.

He further said that even the suppliers have also been lacking supplies for the patients.

With the given situation, he urged the public to get vaccinated to reduce the spread of the virus. – Liezelle Soriano Roy, INQUIRER.net trainee

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