THE Augustus Long Hospital in Pointe-a-Pierre continues to be of concern for hospital occupancy of Covid-19 patients.
Principal Medical Officer of Institutions Dr Maryam Abdool-Richards spoke at the Ministry of Health’s virtual media conference on Wednesday. She said that hospital was above 75% occupancy.
She said, “The Augustus Long hospital continues to be the only hospital that is above the critical threshold of 75%. The hospital is at 92% occupancy this morning but all step-down facilities which are represented here are under the critical factor.’’
She said the ward level percentage which deals with the least ill patients in the system was at 37%. The Intensive Care Unit (ICU) was filled to 82% and the High Dependency Unit (HDU) was at 20%, she said.
Dr Abdool-Richards said, “We anticipate that by the end of this week we will have more patients as compared to last week. As of 8am this morning, there were 374 persons being managed by the parallel healthcare system.
“Of that 374 persons, 275 are in the nine hospitals under the parallel healthcare system and 99 in the seven stepdown facilities. We also have ten children within the parallel healthcare system receiving medical attention.”
She added, “The occupancy is at 37%. A trend which we have been noticing since July 15. If we broke up the occupancy between T&T. Trinidad is at an occupancy level of 36% while Tobago is at 42%. Meaning on an average four out of ten beds in each island are currently filled managing Covid-19 patients.”
She also reminded the public that from July 27 to date, 98% of persons in the HDU department were not fully vaccinated against Covid-19 and 99% of persons admitted to the ICU department have not been fully vaccinated.
Of the number of Covid-19 deaths from May 9 to present, 99% of deaths were persons who were not fully vaccinated.
Dr Abdool Richards said, “This can be interpreted as vaccines being a lifesaving tool for persons and prevent them from being hospitalised form Covid-19.
“Let us please all ensure that we are vaccinated. Vaccines are safe, they are effective and they are accessible.”
