With positive COVID-19 cases surpassing 4,000 in the past two weeks, the Ministry of Health is contemplating additional ways to accommodate COVID-19 patients who may require hospitalization, if the situation worsens.

The Ministry of Health is preparing to set up field hospitals if the situation continues to decline with more new cases being recorded and the active cases tally continuing to climb.

“If we see this trend continuing, we are going to set up the field hospital, we have started those preparing to put those field hospital in place with that we will have an additional capacity with about 60 persons,” the Health Minister said.

Recently, the Health Minister said as cases continue to climb, some public hospitals will be designated as special COVID facilities and will deal only with COVID-19 cases.

He noted, however, that efforts are ongoing to boost the existing facilities.

“We have been making some additional preparations if we have to go to that full capacity. Right now on the second floor of the Ocean View facility, we have just put in piped oxygen before we use to use the 1000 pounds cylinder we are changing that now and using pipe oxygen….So we are preparing for if we have a surge or if more people needing hospitalization, that we can probably have the full capacity of 204 persons there,” The Minister explained.

The Minister further pointed out that COVID patients have been receiving treatment at each of the regional hospitals, and moves are afoot to expand the capacity at those hospitals as well.

The Minister said currently there continues to be strict monitoring of the number of infections during the Delta variant surge.

But even with the numbers rising steadily, Dr. Anthony said there are no plans to shut the country down.

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