At least four tertiary private hospitals in Metro Manila have shut their doors for COVID-19 in-patients, after at least four doctors died of COVID-19 infection while hundreds of hospital workers were quarantined due to possible infection.
St. Luke’s Medical Center in Quezon City and Taguig City, Makati Medical City and The Medical City in Pasig City said in separate statements that they could no longer accommodate more COVID-19 cases due to overcapacity.
St. Luke’s Medical Center said 592 of their health frontliners are already under quarantine. Currently, their two hospitals are treating 48 COVID-19 positive and 139 patients under investigation. “Both hospitals have already exceeded maximum capacity and admitting more COVID-19 patients will seriously impact our ability to deliver the critical level of care and attention patients need at this time,” it said.
But while St. Luke’s could no longer accept patients for confinement in its Quezon City and Taguig City hospitals, their emergency rooms are still open for outpatient COVID-19 testing for qualified patients.
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Makati Medical Center also said it has reached its “full capacity” to handle COVID-19 cases with close to 70 in-patients. Around 15 percent of their patients are already in the intensive care unit, including their own doctors, nurses, technicians, nursing aides and others who were in the frontline since February 2020.
“As such, we can no longer extend the same degree of care and attention for any additional admission for COVID-19 cases,” Dr. Saturnino Javier, MMC director, said in a statement.
Their emergency department “will try” to give preliminary evaluation and treatment to patients, but “cannot guarantee a room” for admission.
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The Medical City sought understanding from the public from turning away patients. “We do not wish at all to turn you away. But the reality is that we could no longer provide your loved ones the care that they need,” it said in another statement.
The Pasig City-based medical facility said it has 64 patients under investigations and 18 COVID-19 positive cases admitted in its ward and intensive care unit as of Monday. Of its health frontliners, 137 meanwhile are in quarantine after being exposed to coronavirus patients.
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Last Friday, 11 private hospitals in Metro Manila — including the three which restricted admission for PUI’s — have published a one-page in the Philippine Daily Inquirer asking the government to put into action the government plan to place all COVID-19 patients into one or two hospitals.
“Panic is escalating, mortality is increasing, our supplies of personal protective equipment (PPE) are running short, our frontline staff are increasingly getting depleted as more of them are quarantined or physically and emotionally exhausted, and a number of our medical colleagues are already hooked to respirators fighting for their lives in various ICUs,” their statement read.
The Private Hospitals Association of the Philippines Inc. also expressed concern that some of its members might resort to stop operations temporarily. Aside from lack of protective personal equipment (PPE), it said they also lack high-grade disinfectant to clean the hospital facilities because their supplies are being blocked at the checkpoints requiring a number of documentary proofs.
The Department of Health had said that it was preparing three state hospitals- the Philippine General Hospital in Manila, the Jose M. Rodriguez Memorial Hospital in Caloocan City, and the Lung Center of the Philippines in Quezon City- to serve as referral centers for COVID-19 patients following the appeal of the private hospitals.
