The capacity at the Georgetown Public Hospital’s regular Intensive Care Unit (ICU) was not affected by the establishment of a specialised COVID-19 ICU at the facility, according to the hospital’s Communications Manager Chelauna Providence.
Providence, in an interview with Stabroek News, said, “Having a COVID ICU at the hospital has not affected our regular ICU; the COVID ICU that we set up at the hospital was in a space that, yes, we were using for other patients but it definitely did not disrupt our regular ICU or any of our ICU wards”.
Providence told this newspaper that the relocation of the COVID-19 ICU to the Liliendaal hospital is also not expected to disrupt regular operations at the hospital. According to her, the hospital, since the COVID-19 outbreak has been operating as per normal with minor changes which were not connected to the setting up of the specialized ICU at GPH.
Some of the minor changes included the postponement of elective surgeries, a screening process to enter the facility and now having patients who come to the facility with respiratory distress or respiratory illnesses swabbed for COVID-19 upon entry.
“When we initially set it [COVID-19 ICU] up and when we initially set up other areas in the hospital such as our maternity COVID unit and our COVID unit for dialysis… we had spaces in the hospital where we were able to make those changes, where we were able to move patients, these were areas that weren’t necessarily deemed overpopulated with patients,” Providence explained.
The only impact the addition of those specialty areas had, she noted, was on the staff and the hospital having to designate staff for them.
Those staff members were reassigned from the units where they were assigned and were trained to man the special facilities. She noted, “These persons were specially trained and they have been working in these units since they… started up.” She said more staff members were added as the need arose.
When the COVID-19 ICU is officially moved to the Infectious Diseases Hospital at Liliendaal, staff members will be transitioned to that facility to continue their work there. “Some of those staff will be transitioning to that facility to work because, as I said, they were specially trained for ICU care for COVID patients, so I don’t really see it having like a negative impact on the hospital,” Providence said, while adding that there has been no shortage of nursing staff and doctors and more doctors and nurses have come on board who have taken up postings in the departments where COVID-19 staff was drawn from.
Meanwhile, Providence noted that the facility’s transition unit is still active as there is a need for it at the GPH. She noted that there is a need for that area as when patients come in with respiratory distress, there must be an area where they can be placed after they are swabbed for COVID-19 and awaiting their results.
“There must be an area where we can provide care for them until we can know their results and then we can put them in a more permanent area,” she said, while adding that upon receiving the results those patients will then be transferred to the Liliendaal facility or to the relevant ward to receive treatment for whatever illness they present with upon being admitted.
