St. Luke's, Medical Center Taguig reach full capacity for COVID-19 cases

St. Luke's Medical Center (SLMC) in Taguig and Quezon City as well as Medical Center Taguig have already reached full capacity for COVID-19 patients.

Interviewed on CNN Philippines, Taguig City Mayor Lino Cayetano on Monday said the hospitalization of COVID-19 patients especially in private hospitals is a problem in his city.

According to the mayor, private hospitals in Taguig usually accommodate more patients coming from outside the city.

SLMC chief medical officer Dr. Benjamin Campomanes on Sunday also said facilities at SLMC were already reaching full capacity.

In SLMC Global City, for instance, he said all 109 beds are "101% occupied," as some families opt to share a room even beyond its bed capacity.

In a separate advisory on Facebook on Monday, SLMC said its COVID-19 wards and Intensive Care Unit in Quezon City "reached full capacity."

However, SLMC's management said it remains in full service for non-COVID-19 cases, "both outpatient and inpatient." 

The head of Philippine Hospital Association meanwhile on Monday appealed to patients with mild COVID-19 symptoms to have themselves confined in smaller hospitals instead of the big ones, citing the latter's "overloaded capability."

Interviewed on Unang Balita, Dr. Jaime Almora said mild cases don't usually require the "critical equipment" that big hospitals offer.

"Nanawagan tayo sa mga pasyente ng may mild symptoms na sa maliit na ospital na kayo pumunta kasi overloaded na yung capability — it's not actually the capacity but the capability — ng malalaking ospitlas," he said.

(We are appealing to patients with mild symptoms to go to small hospitals because the capabilities of the big ones — it's not actually the capacity but the capability -- are already overloaded.)

On Saturday, the OCTA Research group projected hospitals in the National Capital Region will reach full capacity in the first week of April as the country’s COVID-19 reproduction number is increasing.

As of Saturday, The OCTA Research group said the reproduction number was around 1.95, which indicated that one positive individual can infect nearly two people.

“[O]ur modeling suggests that with the current reproduction number hovering around 1.9, we expect both total bed and ICU capacity to reach full 100 percent occupancy by the first week of April," it said.

On Sunday, the Department of Health reported 7,757 new infections bringing the total to 663,794. This is the third consecutive day when more than 7,000 cases were reported.

At least 577,754 have recovered from the disease.

The death toll increased to 12,968 with 39 new fatalities.

Taguig City meanwhile has recorded a total of 13,252 COVID-19 cases as of March 20.

Of this number, 12,894 recovered while 185 died.

The city said Taguig registered the lowest number of active cases per 100,000 persons in the National Capital Region, with 18.

 —With a report from Consuelo Marquez/KG, GMA News