The chief of the Muntinlupa City Health Office (CHO) said the rise in the rate of admissions in hospitals was due to fewer beds allocated for patients.
Maria Rosario Vergeire, officer-in-charge of the Department of Health (DOH), recently said they have noted an increase in hospital admissions in Muntinlupa, Pasig, Malabon, Makati, Navotas, and Caloocan.
“This is (because) all our hospitals had allocated only few ICU Covid bed,s therefore translating to high occupancy rate,” said Dr. Juancho Bunyi, Muntinlupa CHO chief.
He added, “Based on our current data, we have a total of 18 ICU beds from the total seven hospitals in our city, of which, only six confirmed cases are admitted accounting to 33.33% only.”
On Oct. 3, Muntinlupa added 50 new Covid-19 cases to bring the total active cases to 135 out of 44,074 confirmed cases, 43,304 recoveries, and 635 deaths.
The DOH reported that from Sept. 26 to Oct. 2, a total of 16,017 new Covid-19 cases were recorded in the entire country, 10 percent lower compared to the tally from Sept. 19 to Sept. 25.
Bunyi recommended increasing hospital ICU bed capacity to address the reported increase in the ICU bed utilization for all the hospitals in Muntinlupa.
He also said there is a need ”to strengthen the Surveillance Unit and to perform routine triaging of patients prior to admission and utilize isolation Units prior to hospital admission to reserve hospital beds for moderate to severe cases.”
According to Bunyi, another measure is “to continue with the compliance of the mandated IATF Guidelines by ensuring that the minimum public health standards are followed, including the wearing of masks at all times if possible.”