KUALA LUMPUR – A retired government medical specialist has proposed that Putrajaya rope in developers or mega corporations to assist in building intensive care units, or refurbishing old or abandoned buildings for the purpose.
Responding to Health Director-General Tan Sri Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah’s warning that public hospitals are running out of ICU beds amid the worsening Covid-19 situation, senior consultant paediatrician Datuk Dr Amar-Singh HSS told The Vibes this could be a solution to the burgeoning problem.
“Right now, we are repurposing other beds for ICU use. We take other (non-ICU) beds and repurpose them.
“Currently, we have 792 ICU beds in government hospitals. We are repurposing another 510 to have more ICU beds.
“But when you do this, you are eating into your regular beds, you are shrinking the number of beds available for other patients. House service never had adequate beds in the first place.
Repurposing beds is a quick win to get ICU beds, but it doesn’t solve our problem. What we should do is what China and India have done; they quickly built new beds.
“We don’t have to use a new building. We can take an old building and use it as a hospital.
“The physical infrastructure is already there. All we need is to add new equipment.”
At present, the Health Ministry has more ventilators than ICU beds, he said.
Quoting an article by The Edge, Dr Amar said there are 2,037 ventilators available, or roughly 700 more than ICU beds, including the 510 repurposed ones.
The former head of Perak’s Clinical Research Centre and Raja Permaisuri Bainun Hospital’s Paediatric Department believes developers can make temporary “ICU hospitals” a reality in a matter of weeks.
“We haven’t reached our peak in this nasty outbreak.
If we throw in every resource we have, graduate our final-year medical students, nurses, pharmacists and medical assistants who perform well, and rope in housemen-in-waiting, we might just be able to rescue some who are very ill. We all know the mortality rate is going up.”
He said these temporary facilities must be adequately equipped for them to operate at full capacity.
The equipment needed includes monitors, seven to 10 “perfusors” per bed, ventilators and medical gas.
“The most you need to do is train staff to run these beds,” said Dr Amar.
“It’s not just doctors, but also nursing care. The moment one nurse has to look after two to three beds, we are in trouble.
“Junior doctors and nurses can work in lower-risk areas, while we increase the number of experienced staff to manage the ICU.
“We need to generate new ICUs all over the country, and the way to do that is to subcontract the private sector to build them. If you talk to big corporations, especially developers that can build quickly, we can do this.
“It could also include other corporations like Maxis, our top 10 billionaires – maybe the government can grant them tax exemptions for helping us in this time of crisis.” – The Vibes, May 20, 2021
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