Staff Reporter
All hospital beds set aside for COVID-19 patients in a Free State district hard hit by the pandemic have been taken up, the provincial health department has said.
The exact number of the beds could not be immediately established but provincial health spokesperson Mondli Mvambi said in a statement released Thursday afternoon that efforts were underway to ensure more beds are made available in Lejweleputswa district.
“The current indication is that beds earmarked for COVID-19 are full,” he said.
Mvambi however said the admissions policy could be reviewed because at times patients who had merely tested positive for the virus but showed no symptoms were being accommodated.
“. . . the response of the teams working on this is that these beds are sometimes full because they admit both symptomatic patients which means COVID-19 sick patients or patients with visible signs and symptoms as well as (those) asymptomatic which are patients who are not sick or those not showing any signs and symptoms,” he explained.
Mvambi said health teams in the area are doing due diligence on who is supposed to be in hospital — both private and public — so that those can continue to be admitted while decanting is done for those that are not sick but cannot isolate at their homes.
He said such patients will be taken to government quarantine facilities so as to free up space.
The Free Stater could not establish the exact number of beds for COVID-19 patients in the Free State at the moment, but Health MEC Montseng Tsiu told Spotlight, a local publication, in May that there were about 1 078 quarantine beds and 449 isolation beds in the province.
The number, according to the publication, included 881 quarantine beds in Mangaung, 40 in Fezile Dabi District, 36 in Thabo Mofutsanyana, 55 in Lejweleputswa and 66 in Xhariep.
Tsiu was also quoted as saying there were 14 quarantine sites across the province that time, of which eight were in Mangaung, two in Xhariep, one in Fezile Dabi, one in Thabo Mofutsanyana and two in Lejweleputswa.
Last week, provincial health authorities expressed concern at the sharp rise in COVID-19 cases in the gold-rich Lejweleputswa district after it had recorded an average of 100 new cases per day between July 1 and 9.
The district, which is home to several mining companies, had about 200 confirmed cases of COVID-19 on July 1, but six days later the number had jumped to 617.
On July 9, there were 902 cases.
Latest figures indicate there are now 1 553 cases in that district, with Matjhabeng Local Municipality accounting for the highest number of cases at 1 317.
Nala municipality has 118 cases, Tswelopele 41, Tokologo 12 and Masilonyana 65.