Minister of Health, Dr Frank Anthony has said COVID-19 patients from the Georgetown hospital’s Infectious Disease Unit could be transferred to the ICU of the Centre for Disease Control and Prevention at Liliendaal as early as next week.
The Minister made this disclosure at the COVID-19 Update on Thursday, according to the Department of Public Information.
Over the last three weeks, works have been ongoing to ensure the facility is adequately equipped for patients.
“We have been able to install the oxygen lines, the suction lines and other gas lines that are needed. The oxygen banks and so forth are all in place and we are now moving in the beds that would be there for the ICU,” Minister Anthony was quoted by DPI as saying.
He explained that the ICU will house 25 beds with an additional four beds in the theatre and theatre recovery area, bringing it to a total of 29 beds. Ventilators are also in the process of being installed.
In addition, equipment being used at the GPHC’s Infectious Disease Unit and the staff will be moved to the facility at Liliendaal. This, Minister Anthony said, will see GPHC being downsized.
“We’ll still maintain a minimum presence at Georgetown hospital, but the idea is to move everything across to the Oceanview…Once we complete that, at Georgetown Public Hospital we would be able to return to some sort of normalcy where we’ll be able to see more patients at the hospital,” he said.
Several training programmes will also be scheduled for staff. Some of these sessions will be facilitated by the US Government. Minister Anthony said a team is expected to be in Guyana next week to conduct hands-on training at several regional hospitals.
