COVID-19 hospital occupancy is remaining steady in Trinidad and Tobago.
This was revealed by Principal Medical Officer, Institutions, Dr Maryam Abdool-Richards at a press conference held by Prime Minister Dr Keith Rowley at the Diplomatic Centre in St Ann’s on Saturday.
She said, “Over the last week or so we have noticed a plateau in the total number of confirmed Covid patients requiring care at hospitals.”
Dr Abdool-Richards said, “Similar to the trend we would have noticed last Saturday, there continues to be narrowing of the gap admissions and discharges, that is the number of persons who may require medical care, that is persons who are to be admitted is roughly equal to those being discharged.
“This continues to be a tight balance in the healthcare system at our hospitals and step-down facilities.”
The PMO said, “That number is decreasing slowly but surely from week 18 when there was a peak in terms of the number of cases; as it highlighted that due to increased restriction measures.”
She said there were 15 hospital and step-down facilities in the system.
Abdool -Richards stated that the past two days have seen a minimal decline.
She said, “So, we are moving into a plateau, into a very minimal decline phase over the last week.”
Dr Abdool-Richards said there was a slow decline in terms of occupancy over the last week which is related to the increase in resources allocated which are additional beds.
She said, “We have 16 additional beds added at the St James Medical Complex, and another 16 at the Field hospital in Port of Spain over the last week.”
Dr Abdool-Richards said, “There was a decreasing number of persons requiring care which has resulted in an overall decreasing occupancy.”
She said, “Most of the hospitals as of last night that managed the most ill Covid patients were at under 75 %.”
In addition, the Arima General Hospital continued to be above 75 %, she said.
The PMO said, “There was an overall decline in the occupancy of ward level beds and this decline was attributed to the increase of the number of beds allocated for this level; and the decreasing number of patients requiring hospitalization over the last week.”
She said as at Saturday morning ICU and HDU were at 90% and 82% respectively.
