A total of 164 persons were up to yesterday morning hospitalized across Guyana with COVID-19 and Minister of Health Dr. Frank Anthony reiterated that the number of institutionalized patients is growing, especially unvaccinated persons.
Speaking during his daily COVID-19 update, Anthony stated that as the number of COVID-19 cases continues to rise, so too are hospitalizations, particularly those persons who are unvaccinated along with those who are partially vaccinated.
“As cases would go up in the general population, you would see that we are also going to get more hospitalized patients, especially among persons who did not take the vaccine,” he said.
He mentioned that 164 persons were in hospitals across the country, including at Port Kaituma, Suddie, West Demerara, New Amsterdam, Skeldon, Bartica, Wismar, Mahdia and even Experiment, which he said is being managed by the Mahaicony Hospital.
He further noted that 84 persons are currently at the Ocean View Infectious Disease Hospital, with 30 of those persons in the Intensive Care Unit.
Anthony added that in all the facilities there are patients that require oxygen.
Meanwhile, he added that at the Ocean View facility there is a full complement of staff.
“We have [a] full complement of staff, both for nurses and doctors. I think we have at the facility more than 55 doctors that work there and they care for approximately 120 patients on average,” he said.
According to Anthony, there are different levels of staff for different categories of patients and he credited them for doing “a tremendous job.”
He mentioned that one of the complaints that they have received lately include persons reportedly not getting through when trying to make contact with their relatives who are hospitalized at the facility. As a result, he said they have assigned staff to handle that aspect at the facility.
“We have assigned staff to reach out to the relatives of the patients who are there but I hope the public can understand that for each patient we can’t call five different relatives. So, when a patient comes in we normally would ask that patient who is their preferred point of contact and we would call and update that person,” he said.
