The Ocean View Infectious Diseases Hospital at Liliendaal which was established to treat and care for serious COVID-19 patients is now accepting other patients who are suffering from other infectious diseases.
August marked two years since the hospital has been in operation. In the past two years, it has seen more than 4000 COVID-19 patients.
The COVID-19 patient load has been on a steady decline and a section of the hospital is now being used to treat cases of Monkeypox. Guyana has recorded two cases of that virus and both persons are hospitalised at the Ocean View facility.
Today, Minister of Health Dr Frank Anthony revealed that other patients who are being treated for various infectious diseases and are in need of hospitalisation are now patients of the Ocean View hospital.
He said the hospital has different sections for treating various infectious diseases.
“While we don’t have a lot of COVID patients right now, we have been admitting persons with other infectious diseases and so in a different part of the hospital we have TB patients who require hospitalisation, from time to time we have patients with HIV who may not have been taking their meds and are not virally supressed and we have also now dedicated an area in the hospital for monkeypox patients and this is for persons who require clinical treatment, but in some cases they require isolation”, Dr. Anthony said.
The Ocean View Hospital which was converted from a hotel under the last government at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic has received heavy funding from the current administration as it continues to play a key role in the treatment of COVID-19 patients and the efforts to fight the virus.
There are now over 25 doctors and more than 50 nurses based at the hospital to provide various levels of care and treatment.
“There were a lot of infrastructural things that needed to be done to ensure the place was ready. While we did that, we had to set up an ICU capable of handling patients and putting in oxygen and putting in piped oxygen and we made a 52-bed ICU area and a new triage area for people coming in to the facility and we also put in dialysis because there are patients who come in and might have renal failure…in addition to that we also have an operating theatre at Ocean View so persons who are COVID-19 positive but need an urgent surgical operation, we can operate on them there”, Anthony explained.
The Minister of Health said a number of other improvements were also made at the facility, allowing it to offer all the services of a fully functional hospital.
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