COVID-19 patients at Ocean View Hospital decreasing

The third wave of COVID-19 had resulted in spikes of infected cases and hospitalisation, which are now decreasing at the Infectious Diseases Hospital.
Health Minister Dr Frank Anthony said during Friday’s briefing that there are 41 patients at the East Coast Demerara facility, inclusive of 17 in the Intensive Care Unit. At present, there is enough bed capacity.
“We can comfortably accommodate about 50 ICU-type patients, and the other wards are there for people who would have the less severe form of COVID, nevertheless they require hospitalisation. We do have excess capacity because our cases at the hospital have come down quite a bit,” the minister divulged.
Previously, over 35 intensive patients would be monitored on average during the height of the recent wave, along with 120 in the wards.
The Ministry has been improving its capacity at the specialised hospital with the installation of oxygen connections to each bed. The second floor is completed, and contractors are working on the third.
“What we’ve been doing is installing the pipelines to get oxygen to each bed. We have completed that process, so we have piped oxygen going to every bed in the second floor. We have started about a week and a half ago on the third floor, so that’s about completed as well. The entire hospital now, close to 195 beds, we now have piped oxygen.”
Exterior works have included the construction of a base to install the oxygen plant once it arrives in Guyana.
Meanwhile, Dr Anthony shared that an operating theatre to cater for pregnant women and other cases has been completed.
“We have completed operating theatre at the Ocean View Hospital, but, on occasion, we do have women who are coming in pregnant, and we’ll need to do emergency cesarean sections, and that’s why we have installed a theatre at the Ocean View Hospital.
In instances, the mothers are too sick to be moved to the Georgetown Hospital,” he detailed.
The oxygen plant is part of a donation to the facility, and upon arrival, an engineer from India will commission the plant. This new addition will occupy 512 square feet and be capable of supplying 800 litres of oxygen per minute. The calculations show that some 50 patients can be attached simultaneously.
From the time the facility was operationalised to this present day, expansions have been made to cater for a higher patient load. This was complimented with additional doctors, nurses and auxiliary staff. Last month, the Health Minister had sounded a warning to Guyanese about the seriousness of the coronavirus disease locally, since many persons were being presented with a more severe form of the virus.