Principal medical officer in charge of institutions Dr Maryam Abdool-Richards has revealed that 92 additional beds have been added to this country’s parallel health care system between Friday and Saturday.
Speaking at Saturday’s media briefing at the Diplomatic Centre, St Ann’s, Dr Abdool-Richards said that of the 92 new beds, 60 were at the new Point Fortin Hospital and 32 at Couva hospital.
She said because of the new beds, the country’s overall hospital occupancy was 70 per cent – 76 in Trinidad and 31 per cent in Tobago.
However, she pointed out that “although we continue to add beds and we continue to reallocate limited resources by moving and rationalising doctors, nurses and equipment, the beds continue to be filled.”
She said Caura was at 93 per cent occupancy, Couva was at 71, Arima at 99, Augustus Long at 81, St Ann’s was at 100, Point Fortin was at 73 per cent on Saturday morning but was “almost at maximum levels” by 2 pm.
Dr Abdool-Richards said “We have additionally converted about 30 ward beds into 11 additional ICU beds. We have also improved the clinical efficiency so we are looking at the accurate admission and discharge of persons.”
Additionally, she said that the seven-day rolling average of new cases was 508 but there was a slight decline in daily hospital admissions in the past week.
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