The Philippine General Hospital (PGH) on Tuesday, Aug. 24, announced that it will temporarily stop accepting patients in its emergency room amid "record-high" coronavirus disease (COVID-19) admissions.
As of Tuesday, the largest COVID-19 referral hospital in the country is currently tending to 300 COVID-19 patients.
In an advisory, PGH said most of their patients need intensive care, high-flow oxygen, and ventilators.
"The welfare of our patients, as well as our staff, will only be at risk if we allow more admissions," the hospital said in Filipino.
In an interview over One News, PGH Spokesperson Dr. Jonas del Rosario noted that "it's the worst they have seen since the onset of the pandemic."
"It's the highest number we have, we have 300 confirmed patients admitted to PGH, so for the past 16 months, this is the highest number. Much higher than the previous surges that we had and it occupies almost full capacity of our hospital," Del Rosario said.
"We initially started with 250, increased the bed capacity to 300, now we're 300 beds occupied and we increased a little bit more," he continued.
The one limitation PGH has is manpower, Del Rosario added.
"Even if we open more beds or try to open more wards, we're limited to the number of healthcare workers who can take care of these patients," he said.
The state-run hospital earlier announced that it has stopped admitting non-COVID patients due to the growing number of COVID-19 patients needing admission.
READ MORE: PGH stops accepting non-COVID-19 patients