MANILA – Malacañang on Tuesday assured that the country would not run out of hospitals to accommodate coronavirus disease (Covid-19) patients even after a health official said the critical care capacity for intensive care unit (ICU) beds has reached its “danger zone.”
Presidential Spokesperson Harry Roque made this remark after several hospitals announced that they could no longer accept new Covid-19 patients due to full bed capacity.
Roque said Health Undersecretary for Special Concerns Leopoldo “Bong” Vega is making sure that all Covid-19 patients would be referred to a particular hospital to receive treatment.
Vega, who first disclosed that the number of ICU beds has reached its danger zone, heads a new unit called Hospital One Incident Command, which sets up Covid-19 bed allocation guidelines to ensure effective minimum and surge capacity in public and private hospitals.
“Overall, sapat-sapat naman po ang ating mga hospital beds kasama na na po diyan iyong ating mga ICU beds. So, kung puno na ang ospital na gusto ninyong pasukan, sasabihin naman kayo kung saan pupuwedeng magpunta kung kinakailangan ng ICU care (Overall, we have enough hospital beds, including ICU beds. So if a hospital is full, you will be referred to another hospital if necessary),” Roque said in a virtual Palace briefing.
Citing Vega, he said the country’s critical care capacity is currently at 70 percent, which is still “manageable.”
Roque said Vega has begun asking hospitals to increase the allotted number of ICU beds for Covid-19 patients.
Currently, hospitals are mandated to allocate 30 percent of their beds for Covid-19 patients.
He also appealed to private hospitals that claimed that they have reached the full capacity of their beds dedicated to Covid-19 patients to expand the capacity further.
“Nakikiusap po ngayon ang gobyerno kung puno na iyong 30-percent capacity for ICU beds, kung pupuwede gawing 50-percent capacity naman for Covid patients (The government appeals to private hospitals, if you have reached your 30-percent capacity for ICU beds, can you expand it to 50-percent capacity for Covid patients),” Roque said.
As of Monday, there are a total of 57,006 confirmed Covid-19 cases in the country, of which 20,371 are recoveries and 1,599 are deaths.
Treatment czar
Following questions over Vega being named as “treatment czar” instead of Health Secretary Francisco Duque III, Roque said the former was appointed as such after being named head of a new unit called Hospital One Incident Command.
“Kaya po tinawag naming siyang treatment czar kasi siya yung nagko-coordinate sa lahat ng mga ospital na kung saan po pupuwede pumunta ang mga pasyente (He is called treatment czar because he coordinates with hospitals where patients can get treatment),” he said.
Vega was appointed to the health department after President Rodrigo Duterte threatened to fire officials over the delay in the compensation of health care workers infected with Covid-19.
However, Duterte has also repeatedly vouched for Duque’s integrity amid criticism over his handling of the Covid-19 situation in the country.
Roque earlier said Duterte praised Vega for modernizing the Southern Philippines Medical Center, a hospital in Davao City, which the President himself has frequented.
However, he said he does not know if Duterte wanted to replace Duque with Vega.
Vega declined to comment when asked if he was willing to become health secretary.
“Well, I don’t think I can answer it right now. That’s too theoretical. I am just preparing myself for undersecretary so I cannot fathom being secretary at this time,” he said.