A number of COVID-19 patients were yesterday afternoon moved into the Centre for Disease Control and Prevention, formerly the Ocean View Hotel, as the Ministry of Health finalised plans to adequately house COVID-19 patients at the facility.
This was disclosed to Stabroek News by Minister of Health, Dr Frank Anthony, who stated that late yesterday afternoon it was reported to him that novel coronavirus patients were being transported to the facility. The health minister was not able to provide any specifics on how many patients were transported to the facility at the time.
However, speaking with members of the media on Monday, Dr Anthony stated that over the weekend a number of works were carried out at the facility including connection to GPL’s electricity grid and the provision of water by GWI.
According to the Minister, the facility is now at a point where patients can be brought in. He noted that as of Monday the ministry had worked with GWI to have tanks of water supplied to the COVID-19 hospital as they work on connecting the facility to GWI’s supply. “We are hoping that as GWI continues to work on this problem of connecting us directly to the main… that would probably take another week or so to fix, but in that interim period they will continue to truck water to the facility,” Dr. Anthony said.
As it relates to having electricity at the former hotel, he stated that the technicians at GPL were able to come up with a temporary solution which involves having smaller transformers that would assist in facilitating its power demand.
While the minister expected to have patients at the facility by Monday afternoon, that did not occur. Moving patients into the facility was dependent on the outcome of an assessment done by the medical team from the Georgetown Public Hospital Corporation (GPHC).
Dr Anthony added that two sections of the facility will be utilised. One will be in the eastern wing of the lower flat of the facility. It will house persons who are in “transition” as he explained that those are patients who are suspected cases of the virus but are awaiting test results. “We would be putting them in this facility where they will be adequately quarantined so to speak because each one of them would have their own room, they would have their own bathroom and toilet and they will be separated. So there will be no chance of infection or contamination,” the health minister assured.
The other section of the facility which will be put to use would be the upper floor which was made ready to house positive patients.
As it relates to staffing at the facility, 28 doctors have already been identified to work at the facility which will be supervised and managed by the GPHC which will provide nurses and other support staff. The minister stated that they intend to house patients with minor or mild forms of the disease on the upper floor of the facility where they will be closely monitored. “If they move from mild to more severe forms of the disease we will have an ambulance that is on standby at the facility to move them quickly over to GPHC so that they can get the necessary support that they require,” the minister informed.
In the near future they will be looking into setting up an intensive care unit at the facility but that will take some time to set up. “Once that is up and running then those critical patients can receive care right at Ocean View but as of now we will have these transient arrangements.” he said.
