BELIZE CITY, Mon. Aug. 24, 2020– On Saturday, August 22, the Karl Heusner Memorial Hospital (KHMH) initiated its COVID-19 Surge Plan after announcing that the designated COVID-19 isolation unit has reached its full capacity.
The national referral hospital has thus activated an Alternate Emergency Area located at the Special Outpatient Clinic. New suspected and confirmed cases will therefore be managed at the Accident and Emergency Unit.
A total of 16 ventilators are currently at the KHMH, where 4 ventilated COVID-19 patients and 5 confirmed non-ventilated patients are presently being treated.
The COVID-19 Surge Plan has been put in place to accommodate the spillover of COVID-19 patients into the retrofitted Accident and Emergency Unit. The triage process already set in place by the hospital will be utilized to identify priority cases and give them access to the area. The KHMH has thus informed the public that extreme emergencies will be prioritized.
The hospital entered emergency mode on Thursday, August 13, and announced its Special Outpatient Clinic and elective procedures would be suspended.
The Office of the Director of Health Services (DHS) gave an additional breakdown of hospitalized cases across the country. Corozal currently has one patient hospitalized; the Northern Regional Hospital currently has 2 hospitalized cases; and the Western Regional Hospital has one highly suspected case.
In a post made on social media, the Office of the DIrector of Health Services said, “While the concern is the overall bed capacity beyond just ventilators, we do want to continue to stress the overall importance of prevention, as we do want to keep hospitalization rates at the lowest possible levels.”
An explosive spread of COVID-19 throughout Latin America has caused healthcare systems in various countries in our region to collapse.
In Mexico, army barracks, which were used to house soldiers, have been converted into treatment centers for the increasing cases of COVID-19.
In Guatemala, various healthcare professionals have taken to social media to highlight a lack of PPE’s in the hospitals, and are lamenting that the pandemic has pushed an already weak healthcare system in that country to the brink of collapse.