The Health Ministry has ordered hospitals to prepare to open additional coronavirus wards.
As YWN reported, hospitals are filling up and beginning to turn away coronavirus patients due to lack of capacity, including Shaarei Tzedek in Jerusalem and many hospitals in the north.
Shaarei Tzedek director Prof. Ofer Marin said on Wednesday he is converting the hospital cafeteria into a coronavirus ward for another 55 patients but he can’t manage to convince suppliers to bring him equipment.
Beilinson Hospital in Petach Tikvah and Rambam Medical Center in Haifa are preparing underground coronavirus wards. Rambam is converting its parking garage into a ward with 110 beds, with a potential capacity for 770 beds. It will begin operations next week, Ynet reported.
Beilinson’s underground ward will have 206 beds and will be ready to receive patients by Friday from hospitals in the north.
It is unknown whether hospitals have hired enough medical personnel to staff the new wards as a lack of nurses trained to work with seriously ill and ventilated patients is apparently even more of an issue than a lack of beds.
Over the week, 140 coronavirus patients are being transferred from hospitals in Jerusalem and eight hospitals in the north to hospitals in the center of the country, including Sheba Medical Center in Ramat Gan, Ichilov Medical Center in Tel Aviv, Rabin Medical Center in Petach Tikva and Soroka Hospital in Beersheba.
(YWN Israel Desk – Jerusalem)
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One Response
With all of this going on, I don’t understand how there are still people out there who are saying that the government is overreacting. Do we need to go back to what was happening in Brooklyn back in March/April/May to see what can happen if this situation gets out of control?
an Israeli Yid