Bangkok is currently seeing a backlog of about 2,700 people infected with COVID-19 who are waiting at home to be sent to pre-admission centres, according to Director of Bangkok Emergency Medical Services Center (Erawan Center) Dr. Pornthep Saeheng.
He said that the main task of the centre is to have the patients, including asymptomatic, mildly symptomatic and serious cases, who are at home isolation, sent to the 25 pre-admission centres scattered across Bangkok.
He said that the centre is also helping to arrange for the moderate and serious cases to be sent to either general hospitals for the serious cases or to field hospitals for moderate cases.
The centre’s hotline receives hundreds of distress calls seeking hospital beds each day and 1,800 calls were received yesterday alone, said Dr. Pornthep. The home isolation system is now accommodating thousands of mild and asymptomatic cases, who prefer to stay home to avoid the congestion in field hospitals or pre-admission centres, said Dr. Pornthep.
Meanwhile, at the provincial hospital in the central province of Saraburi, an image showing COVID-19 patients lying on wheeled stretchers outside the hospital, because all the hospital’s 700 beds are fully occupied, was posted on Facebook by netizen Manita Thodpetch.
A medic at the hospital told Thai PBS that some of these patients are under medical investigation and others have mild symptoms, but they are kept outside the emergency ward to prevent the disease from spreading.
He added, however, that all of them have been moved into the hospital, as officials are in the process of setting up a field hospital to accommodate about 500 patients who are awaiting to be admitted for treatment.
163 new infections were logged yesterday in Saraburi and two have died.
Siriraj Piyamaharajkarun Hospital issued an announcement yesterday advising people to contact the hospital’s hotline, on 1474, before bringing patients to the hospital, saying that the ICU and COVID wards are now fully occupied and there are many patients waiting to be transferred from the ER.
