By Karen Bong
KUCHING, April 27: Sarawak General Hospital (SGH) has opened up its newly completed Clinical Research Centre (CRC) Ward and extension ward to add an additional 18 beds for critical care cases and increase its Intensive Care Unit (ICU) capacity which has an existing 18 beds.
Minister for Local Government and Housing Dato Sri Dr Sim Kui Hian pointed out that with the additional beds, the ICU now had 36 beds.
“Currently 58.7 per cent of the 12 out of 18 existing beds in the ICU allocated for Covid-19 patients including high-risk severe acute respiratory illness and persons-under-investigations (SARI and PUI) cases are occupied by Covid-19 positive patients as the ICU is also occupied by non-Covid-19 cases who need intensive care and treatments.
“The rest of the beds in CRC Ward and extension ward will be for clean ICU patients,” he explained in a Facebook post after being briefed during a visit to the SGH ICU and SGH vaccination area today.
He also pledged to follow up with the Ministry of Health (MOH) on the additional RM2.3 million allocated beginning of this year for the upgrade of SGH ICU.
On the bed occupancy rate (BOR) at SGH for the week from April 19 to 25, Dr Sim revealed that the Covid-19 ward was at 74.57 per cent while critical care where ventilated beds are allocated for Covid-19 patients was at 80.95 per cent, and the Quarantine and Low-Risk Treatment Centre (PKRC) was at 79.13 per cent.
“This means that there are still room for optimal care for such (Covid-19) cases,” he said.
Dr Sim, who is also the State Disaster Management Committee (SDMC) advisor, highlighted that for the past one month, SGH has recorded a significant increase in the number of Covid-19 cases with a steep surge of 92 per cent from 250 cases to 481 cases in epidemiological week (EW) 6 this year.
In EW 16 from April 19 to 25, 373 Covid-19 cases were recorded which marked a drop of 22.5 per cent.
“In the week, the average admission was 69 cases per day while the highest admission recorded was 103 on April 25,” he added.
Dr Sim and SGH thus reiterated the call for all citizens to continue to remain vigilant during this critical period and join in the efforts to help Sarawak curb the spread of Covid-19 infections in the State by adhering by standard operating procedures (SOP) issued by the Ministry of Health (MOH). — DayakDaily
