The Philippine General Hospital (PGH) has suspended all surgical operations on Monday, 17 following the fire that broke out at the state-run hospital early Sunday morning.
Fire razed the hospital's Operating Room Sterilization Area, which is adjacent to the operating rooms.
"Right now we have suspended all the operational procedures in the PGH. This is a major problem because we offer a lot of operational procedures for our kababayan (countrymen). A lot of these procedures are specialized and only the PGH can offer them," PGH Spokesperson Dr. Jonas del Rosario said in an interview with ANC on Monday, May 17.
"We're just praying that not a lot of instruments were destroyed and we can resume normal operations within 24 to 48 hours," he added.
The PGH's emergency room will also remain closed and admissions are suspended on Monday.
"We suspended the emergency room because that's where we evacuated our patients temporarily. We have a new emergency room, it hasn't been used but we opened it yesterday for everyone because that's one way of segregating patients, we're aware that we have COVID and non-COVID patients," he added.
Some 153 patients occupy the hospital's 250 COVID-19 beds, all of them have been returned to their designated wards and rooms after they evacuated on Sunday, according to Del Rosario.
READ MORE: Most patients have returned to their rooms and wards — PGH spokesperson
The Bureau of Fire Protection and the Department of Public Works and Highways are set to investigate and evaluate what caused the blaze.