The emergency department of the Philippine General Hospital (PGH) is already full and has already reached 200 percent capacity, the hospital’s spokesperson announced on Saturday, June 4.

“Sa ngayon po ‘yung capacity po ng PGH emergency department ay 200 percent of its capacity na po, so doble po nung allotted na bilang ng kama para sa emergency room (Right now, the capacity of PGH’s emergency department is at 200 percent capacity already, so it is double of the allotted number of beds for the emergency room),” PGH spokesperson Dr. Jonar Del Rosario said during a radio interview.

He noted that most of the patients admitted to the emergency department of PGH have non-Covid medical conditions.

In fact, Del Rosario said they almost have no more Covid-19 patients in their hospital.

“Marami po sa kanila may iba’t ibang sakit may pneumonia, may mga sakit sa baga, iba po siyempre may sakit sa bato, may iba po may mga surgical problem. And napakarami pong nag-wa-walk in ngayon dinadala ang patients sa PGH (Many of them admitted here have different kinds of diseases, some have pneumonia, some have lung disease, some have kidney disease, while others have surgical problems. Many of them walk into the PGH),” he continued.

The PGH spokesperson said such did not suddenly happen, saying that they have been seeing an increase in the number of admissions at the emergency department for the past few weeks.

With this, Del Rosario appealed to other hospitals to coordinate first with the PGH before bringing patients to them.

“Iyon pong mga hospital na nagdadala ng mga pasyente na uncoordinated sa PGH ay nakikiusap kami na kailangan ay i-coordinate muna sa hospital ( We are asking other hospitals to coordinate first with the PGH before bringing patients to us),” he said

For people who want to walk in at PGH, he advised them to head to the outpatient department instead of the emergency department, especially if their situations are not emergency cases.

“Ang mga tinatanggap lang po namin ngayon sa emergency department ay ang tinatawag nating life and limb-threatening emergencies, example po ‘yung trauma, inatake sa puso, na-stroke, ‘yung mga kondisyon po na kailangang operahan agad-agad (At the emergency department, we are only accepting those what we call life and limb-threatening emergencies, examples are trauma, cardiac arrest, stroke, and other conditions that need immediate operations),” Del Rosario said.