SPMC faces bed shortage due to high dengue cases

SPMC faces bed shortage due to high dengue cases



SOUTHERN Philippines Medical Center (SPMC) has confirmed that they are currently experiencing congestion due to the influx dengue patients, a health official said.

Dr. Nemia Asiong, chief Residential SPMC Pediatrics, said during the Kapehan sa Dabaw press forum Monday, July 22, 2019 at SM City Annex that recently they have an average of 15 to 20 patients admitted due to the mosquito-borne disease.

“Ang monitoring namin is usually through endorsement ng daily census and based on our daily census, 99 percent talaga ang occupation rate ng aming beds. So that is how high the admissions are. Minsan lumalampas pa ‘yan ng over a 100 percent especially pag influx ng mga dengue season, pneumonia season,” Asiong said.

Based on their monitoring, dengue cases topped the most cases they have in the pediatrics department for June with an estimated 400 cases followed by pneumonia and acute gastroenteritis or diarrhea.

“What we did actually, umabot na kami sa admin just to give us more beds to accommodate mga non-infectious cases like dengue. If you would visit SPMC, pati lobby namin naa nay beds,” Asiong said.

Their observation unit in the ground is already full of dengue patients.

What they are doing now is strategize every day and try to discharge the patients as early as they can to accommodate more patients.

Asiong said what they are concerned now are the patients with severe dengue who need to be admitted to the intensive care unit (ICU). Asiong said they have a limited bed capacity for these cases.

As a result, the patients have to wait in their Clinical Investigation Unit (CIU) in the emergency room for a few days before they will be transferred to ICU.

“We only admit depending on the indication based on our protocols. (If) decreasing na gyud ang platelet, there are bleeding signs, abdominal pain, vomiting, (then) that’s the time we decide na oberbahan nato. For those patients who can still manage to hydrate themselves (and) still active, we have them observed sa ilahang balay ug mag monitor lang sila ug ilahang platelet (actually hematocrit) daily,” she added.

Asiong added that a dengue fast lane in the ER was also established to immediately check patients if they have dengue.

She said some patients have to share a bed especially those who are smaller in size because of the inadequate number of beds in the observation area.

The youngest patient they have is seven months old and there are also adolescents.

Earlier, the Department of Health (DOH) declared a National Dengue Alert due to the rapidly increasing number of dengue cases in the country and Davao is among the regions being monitored after exceeding the alert threshold or the number of dengue cases.

There have been 15 deaths due to dengue from January 1 to July 17, 2019 with more than 3,000 cases monitored this year.

With this development, Asiong appealed to the public to bear with them considering that they have limited staff and doctors but she assured that they will do their best to accommodate all patients.

“We cannot control these circumstances [it is] out of the control of doctors and nurses or the admin because we cannot refuse patients. Tanan nga mangabot nga patients, we have to accept and accommodate. Mao lang pod na ang amoang basic nga duty nga maskin unsa pana siya dili namo pwede i-refuse may money man or wala dawaton namo," she added.

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