Legazpi expands Covid-19 bed capacity for seniors

By Cet Dematera

AFTER posting a record-high of 71 Covid-19 cases in a single-day on Friday, May 28, the city government f Legazpi has immediately opened additional hospital beds on May 31 for seniors who are suffering mild and moderate infections of Covid-19.

Mayor Noel Rosal said that most of these beds are inside the city-owned Legazpi Hospital.

Rosal said that due to surging cases of Covid-19 in the region, the Bicol Regional Training and Teaching Hospital (BRTTH) could no longer accommodate additional patients that need to be treated with oxygen or in intensive care units (ICUs).

“There is an urgent need for us to open additional beds for Covid-19 patients. But we will be accommodating first the senior patients,” Rosal said.

He also ordered the putting up of more isolation facilities to house the mild and the asymptomatic patients.

Legazpi City had earlier converted the building of the Ibalong Centrum for Recreation (ICR) as quarantine and isolation facility.

Rosal also tapped hotels as quarantine areas for the mild case patients.

He prodded owners of business establishments to strictly observe the minimum health and safety protocols to prevent the alarming increase in Covid-19 cases across the city.

“We will be closing establishments that will not observe the protocols,” Rosal warned in his Facebook post.

As of May 31, Rosal said that at least 5,000 Legazpi residents were already injected with the first dose, and 2,000 with the first and second doses of the anti-Covid-19 vaccines.

The city government has already put on standby some P200-million to buy vaccines.