SPMC remains full despite increasing ICU, ward bed capacity

SunStar Davao file
SunStar Davao file

DESPITE efforts to expand its bed capacity, the Southern Philippines Medical Center (SPMC) remains full due to a surge in admitted Covid-19 patients.

Based on SPMC's bed capacity bulletin, the hospital's intensive care unit (ICU) and ward beds had continuously been fully occupied for five consecutive days from September 6 to 10, 2021.

This despite the hospital's ICU beds increased from 92 on September 8 to 103 as of September 10 and its ward beds increased from 496 to 517 in the same period.

SPMC, in its Facebook post, earlier said the hospital is "experiencing an unusually high volume of patients needing admission for Covid-19."

"Please bear with us as we try to allocate rooms/beds and provide the healthcare you need. Thank you for your kind understanding," the hospital said.

SunStar Davao reached out to SPMC Chief Dr. Ricardo Audan, but he has yet to respond.

In a recent phone interview, Audan said this is not the first time that the hospital has been overwhelmed with Covid-19 patients. This time, however, the number of critical patients waiting to be admitted is higher compared to the previous surge.

He suspected this is caused by the highly infectious Delta variant.

"This has something to do with the Delta variant. Kasi ang characteristics ng hawahan is mabilis ang transmissibility, mabilis makaparami ng pasyente. (Because the characteristics of the transmission is faster, infecting more patients.) So it could be a Delta variant," Audan said.

While he said the confirmatory test from the University of the Philippines-Philippine Genome Center (UP-PGC) would take almost a month, the current situation should already be assumed to be caused by the highly infectious variant.

The SPMC chief said the 44-bed modular hospital, constructed by the Department of Public Works and Highways, helped decongest the patients in the hospital's emergency room.

Audan admitted that manpower remains a challenge for the SPMC’s Covid-19 response due to the lack of nursing staff.

He said they already merged some areas in the hospital to reassign some of the nursing staff to man the modular hospital.

Davao City Covid-19 Task Force Spokesperson Dr. Michelle Schlosser said in an interview on Friday, September 10, that the Covid-19 facilities are nearing full capacity due to the continuing surge in Covid-19 cases in the city.

This after the city recorded 700 new cases on September 9, the highest recorded new cases in a single day since the pandemic started.

Schlosser said these figures are "stressful" for the health sector, considering they do not want the critical care facilities to be overwhelmed.

"We do not want to overwhelm our health system. Dili nato gusto mapuno atoang hospitals, mapuno ato TTMF [temporary treatment and monitoring facilities], unya mapasagdan nato atong katawhan nga dili sila matagaan og medical attention," she said.

(We do not want our hospitals and TTMFs to be overwhelmed and we would neglect our patients and not give them medical attention.)

She also said bed capacities in private hospitals in the city catering to Covid-19 patients are also under overwhelming capacity.

Based on the bed capacity status in the region, the Department of Health-Davao Region reported that 72 out of the 168 total ward beds in Davao City had been used, while seven out of the 11 ICU beds had been occupied. On the city's isolation beds, 77 out of the 135 isolation beds had been utilized.

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