KUCHING – With intensive care unit (ICU) beds in Sarawak’s public hospitals reaching full capacity, state Health Director Dr Chin Zin Hing is pleading with Sarawakians to “please stay at home”.
He said the state and country were now in a crisis, adding that Sarawak was now at the tipping point as healthcare is overwhelmed.
“Our ICU beds are overrun. The doctors are working very hard every day to turn over ventilators or ICU beds so that the next patients that need them can benefit from them.
“No amount of ventilators will be sufficient,” he said in a statement.
Chin said that without cutting transmission of the virus, 10-20% of positive cases would need hospital admission, and 5-10% would need ICU care.
“Imagine if we have 1,000 Covid-19 patients, 10% of 1,000 is 100 patients and 100 ICU beds are needed!
“In Sarawak, we only have 53 ICU beds in four major hospitals. At the moment, we are running 92 ICU beds in all major Sarawak hospitals. All full!
“Remember, each bed will be used for at least 10 days on average if taken up,” he said.
Besides urging Sarawakians to stay at home, Chin appealed to them to stay within their family bubbles and to get tested immediately if they have symptoms suggestive of Covid-19 or have been exposed to a positive case or cluster, so as not to be the source of infection themselves.
He added that people should work from home if possible and, if they have to be in the office, practice standard operating procedures, including wearing face masks at all times and not eating together as that would require them to remove their masks.
Chin also directed his appeal to the non-essential services sector, which had been objecting to the recently tightened conditional movement control order that, among others, prohibited dining in.
“All is not lost as we still allow takeaways. We really need to cut transmissions with everyone’s help now until the national and state vaccination programme is rolled out successfully.
“It is a very critical moment now! Please assist us to cut transmissions as our healthcare settings are very overwhelmed.
“The situation we are in now is very different compared with one year ago. We are at the tipping point,” Chin said.
Sarawak’s cumulative cases rose to 38,816 today with 433 new infections. The state’s death toll also increased to 225 with one more death. – The Vibes, May 17, 2021
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