THE Southern Philippines Medical Center (SPMC) is experiencing an uptick of patients at the Emergency Department (ED), averaging 160 patients a day said SPMC Chief Dr. Ricardo Audan.
In an interview with SunStar Davao on July 14, Audan said the influx of patients at the emergency room started to increase last week and even reached almost 200 patients, which is more than the current capacity of 115 beds.
“Medyo na-alarm na rin kami (We were alarmed) that’s why we released an announcement na kung pwede, yung mga moderate or mild, doon na lang tayo sa hospital (that if possible, moderate or mild cases can turn to the hospital and not the emergency),” Audan said, referring to the announcement on July 13 advising patients that the ED will admit critical cases only for the meantime.
He clarified that the ED is accustomed to handling many patients at a time but the sudden influx as of late was unusual for them.
“Ang mga cases na marami ang (Most of the cases are) pneumonia, stroke, heart attack or heart diseases and problems, kidney problems, and of course trauma cases,” Audan said, clarifying that the patients are non-Covid-19-related.
As an alternative, patients with non-urgent cases may turn to SPMC’s clinics or online teleconsultation as the ED is inclined to cater to more serious cases.
“They make use of our teleconsultation kasi doon pa lang, ma-screen na namin ang patients kung talagang bagay ba sa amin or hindi (because using the teleconsultation, we can screen the patients and determine if they need to be admitted at the ED or not) for that matter,” Audan said.
The SPMC Chief is hoping that the original emergency room, which is currently under renovation, can finally open next week on July 20 as its approximately 90 beds will help decongest the temporary ED stationed at the veterans ward.
Audan said the ED and SPMC are working hard to cater to all patients since most of them cannot afford care and treatment from private hospitals but they are also hoping the traffic of patients will lessen soon.
At the same time, the hospital chief said they are waiting for the new trauma facility in order to separate patients with trauma cases from the ED.