AS THE bed occupancy of the Southern Philippines Medical Center (SPMC) remains under "critical level," SPMC hopes to decongest its existing facilities with its modular hospital.
SPMC head Dr. Ricardo Audan said in a virtual presser that the modular hospital will have a 44-bed capacity, which will be catering to all Covid-19 cases, even those positive with the highly-infectious Delta variant.
The first 22 beds are already ready for occupancy.
He said operations at the modular hospital are expected in the coming days. The remaining 22 beds are expected to be ready for occupancy before the end of August.
Audan said the modular hospital is in response to the recent detection of the Delta variant in the city.
"Kanang modular hospital, mao na among gina-prepare sa among variants. Kung naa man galling, diha namo ibutang basta moderate ug critical severe, of course sa ICU [intensive care unit] gyud (We are preparing the modular hospital in preparation for individuals who will test positive for the Sars-CoV-2 variants. If someone is moderate- and critical-severe, of course, they will be transferred to ICU),” he said.
Since the second half of May this year, SPMC’s bed occupancy for Covid-19 cases remains high. Based on the recent data, both ward and ICU bed occupancy is in the range of 80 to 100 percent utilization rate.
Despite the downtrend on the newly recorded daily cases in the past weeks, Audan said they are not going to be complacent as the threat of the Delta variant might result in a possible surge of cases.
Audan also clarified that all the five Delta positive specimens in Davao City did not come from SPMC.
But he said they are continuously sending specimens to the University of the Philippines-Philippine Genome Center (UP-PGC) for whole-genome sequencing.
In addition, the SPMC official said the hospital will open 23 additional ICU beds in the coming days.
The Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH)-Davao Region, the project implementer of the modular hospital, said in a press release that the facility features include nurse station, public address system, individual toilet and bath, air-conditioning, ventilation system with hepa filters, standby generator and a medical gas system.
DPWH-Davao said the project has a total budget allocation of P62 million.
Construction started in July this year and is set to be completed and fully operational coming months.
“This facility will hopefully bring relief, decongesting the existing facilities of SPMC and to ensure that care is not hampered especially for Covid-19 patients,” the agency said.
Audan said they are in need of nurses and nursing attendants, of which, many are already applying for the vacant position.
"Puspusan ang aming (We are continuously conducting) hiring for this area [modular hospital]," he said.