BY DOMINIQUE GABRIEL BAÑAGA
BACOLOD City – The Riverside Medical Center, a privately run hospital in this city, clarified its earlier advisory declaring “full capacity” of its isolation facility for coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) patients.
In a statement issued late Tuesday night, the hospital’s management said that it was only their isolation facility that has reached full capacity.
This did not mean that the COVID-19 situation in the city and Negros Island had worsened, it added.
The hospital’s advisory was supposedly blamed as the cause over the recent suspension of sea trips between the islands of Panay and Negros.
RMC explained that their isolation facility has only 11 beds, eight of which were occupied by COVID-19 positive patients with mild symptoms. The remaining three beds were occupied by probable cases.
In addition, the medical center reports that there are eight suspected/probably patients admitted outside the isolation facility but within the designated COVID-19 area located at the hospital’s fifth floor.
The medical center has allocated 20 percent or 53 beds out of its bed capacity for COVID-19 related case. Only 19 beds or 36 percent were occupied with zero deaths since the start of the pandemic.
“This is considered a low census for COVID-19 cases admitted in a healthcare facility,” the hospital pointed out.
The RMC again assured the public that they are taking care of their healthcare workers and patients.
The hospital also intends to increase its COVID-19 bed capacity to 30 percent as part of the compliance issued by the Department of Health./PN
