(Trinidad Express) Sixty-one critically ill Covid-19 patients are currently in the intensive care units of Trinidad and Tobago’s parallel healthcare system.
And 21 who are too unstable to be moved to hospitals are receiving ICU care at accident and emergency departments in the traditional healthcare system.
This was disclosed yesterday by Dr Maryam Abdool-Richards, Principal Medical Officer of Health responsible for institutions, at the Ministry of Health Covid-19 virtual news conference.
She outlined that four out of five ICU beds in Tobago were filled yesterday morning, 20 out of 28 beds were occupied at Couva Hospital, 15 out of 16 at Arima General Hospital and four out of six beds at St James Medical Complex were filled.
She said all 12 beds at Augustus Long Hospital in Pointe-a-Pierre and all six at the Point Fortin Hospital were occupied.
Of the 57 ICU patients in Trinidad, 47 were not fully vaccinated.
All four ICU patients in Tobago were not fully vaccinated, Abdool-Richards said.
Abdool-Richards said T&T’s overall hospital occupancy stood at 70 per cent.
Further breaking down the rate, she said 73 per cent of beds in the parallel healthcare system in Trinidad were occupied while 47 per cent were occupied in Tobago.
“I just like to reiterate that the 75 per cent marker is what we look at as a critical threshold and it demonstrates that we continue to see increasing numbers of severely and critically ill persons presenting into the accident and emergency (A&E) units,” she said.
She indicated that 90 Covid-19 patients were receiving care in the A&E departments of the traditional RHAs, 21 of whom required ICU care.
She said none of the 21 patients were fully vaccinated.
She noted that about 72 additional ICU beds can be opened up for critical ill Covvid-19 patients if needed.
“Based on the demand, we do upscale beds. So some beds are actually HDU (high dependency level) but can, as a contingency, be upscaled to an ICU level bed,” Abdool-Richards added.
She said four HDU-level beds at Caura Hospital can be upscaled to ICU beds.