COVID-19 ICU beds fully occupied in 24 Metro Manila hospitals amid case surge

As the Philippines continues to grapple with a fresh surge of coronavirus infections, 24 hospitals in Metro Manila have already reached full capacity of their intensive care unit (ICU) beds for COVID-19 cases, Department of Health (DOH) data showed.

According to DOH data analyzed by the GMA News Research team, the following hospitals no longer have available ICU beds for COVID-19 patients as of March 20:

•     Pasig City General Hospital
•     Metropolitan Medical Center
•     Medical Center Manila, Inc.
•     Las Piñas Doctors Hospital, Inc.
•     Las Piñas General Hospital & Satellite Trauma Center
•     St. Luke's Medical Center
•     Allied Care Experts (Ace) Medical Center-Quezon City, Inc.
•     Makati Medical Center
•     F.Y. Manalo Medical Foundation, Inc.
•     Chinese General Hospital & Medical Center
•     Providence Hospital, Inc.
•     National Children's Hospital
•     National Kidney And Transplant Institute
•     Sta. Ana Hospital
•     Mandaluyong City Medical Center
•     MCU-FDT Medical Foundation Hospital
•     Metro North Medical Center And Hospital, Inc.
•     Commonwealth Hospital And Medical Center
•     Allied Care Experts (Ace) Medical Center Valenzuela, Inc.
•     Asian Hospital Inc.
•     Medical Center Muntinlupa, Inc.
•     San Lazaro Hospital
•     Research Institute For Tropical Medicine
•     Unihealth Parañaque Hospital And Medical Center, Inc.

Four other hospitals have also breached 90% occupancy of COVID-19 ICU beds: the East Avenue Medical Center, Lung Center of the Philippines, Philippine General Hospital, and the University of Perpetual Help Dalta Medical Center Inc.

Across Metro Manila, 70.32% of ICU beds have been occupied. The situation is particularly dire in Makati City, where 221 of the 229 beds for COVID-19 patients are in use.

Las Piñas and Muntinlupa are also in the “critical” zone with at least 85% ICU bed utilization. Makati, Quezon City, Taguig, Pasig, and San Juan are at “high risk” with 70% to 84% ICU bed occupancy.

All isolation beds in Pateros as well as all ward beds in Makati and Muntinlupa have also been occupied.

Experts from the OCTA Research group earlier warned that hospitals in the capital region would reach full capacity by the first week of April due to the surge.

The Philippines registered a record-high 8,019 new COVID-19 cases on Monday, bringing total infections to 671,792 with 577,850 recoveries and 12,972 deaths.

Among the 80,970 active cases, 95.4% are mild, 2.2% are asymptomatic, 0.9% are critical, 1% are severe, and 0.52% are moderate.

Nationwide, 52.58% of ICU beds, 39.03% of isolation beds, 38.02% of ward beds, and 31.30% of mechanical ventilators were occupied or in use as of March 20.

The government has temporarily banned non-essential travel to and from Metro Manila, Cavite, Rizal, Bulacan, and Laguna in a bid to arrest the spike in COVID-19 cases.

Mechanical ventilators

Meanwhile, 100% of mechanical ventilators for COVID-19 patients are already in use in the following Metro Manila hospitals:

•     Metropolitan Medical Center
•     Rosario Maclang Bautista General Hospital
•     Ospital Ng Muntinlupa
•     World Citi Medical Center, Inc.
•     Las Piñas Doctors Hospital, Inc.
•     Quirino Memorial Medical Center
•     Allied Care Experts (Ace) Medical Center-Quezon City, Inc.
•     Las Piñas General Hospital & Satellite Trauma Center
•     Medical Center Manila, Inc.
•     St. Luke's Medical Center
•     Cardinal Santos Medical Center
•     Amang Rodriguez Memorial Medical Center
•     Pasig Doctors Medical Center Inc.
•     Dr. Jesus C. Delgado Memorial Hospital
•     Veterans Memorial Medical Center
•     Quezon City General Hospital

Two other hospitals—the Makati Medical Center and the University of the East Ramon Magsaysay Memorial Medical Center—logged 93.33% and 88.89% usage of their mechanical ventilators, respectively.

Earlier in the day, the DOH said it was studying how to augment the health workforce of hospitals that have been buckling under the strain of rising COVID-19 cases.

Health authorities also called on hospitals to increase their bed allocation for COVID-19 cases but private hospitals have said this is difficult to do without sufficient manpower. —AOL, GMA News