Government prepares for COVID-19  spike

Allison Cooper

PREPARATIONS FOR A POSSIBLE increase in COVID-19 cases are underway with the government and the private sector building field hospitals, purchasing personal protective equipment  and ensuring that South Africa manufactures ventilators.
South Africa’s coro navirus disease (COVID-19) cases are expected to increase in the coming weeks and government is working hard to ensure the health sector is ready.
“We have been buying person-al protective equipment from across the world and supporting local companies to produce them here,” confirmed President Cyril Ramaphosa.“We have been improving the infrastructure in hospitals, set-ting up temporary hospitals and finding more beds for COVID-19 patients,” he added.By the beginning of June, over 27 000 public hospital beds were put aside for COVID-19 patients. Once complete, field hospitals will have 13 000 beds.
Quarantine sites and  field hospitalsPublic Works and Infrastructure Minister Patricia de Lille said:  1 751 facilities have been marked for as proposed isolation sites, representing over 129 600 beds nationally, in all 44 districts and eight metros. 358 facilities have been identified in the Western Cape, repre senting over 27 500 beds.  395 facilities have been assessed by the Department of Health, representing 35 759 beds.  32 hospitals in the Eastern Cape, 19 in KwaZulu-Natal and 10 in Mpumalanga have been identified for renewal and repair as field hospitals.
  The Cape Town Interna-tional Convention Centre, the biggest field hospital in the country, has 862 beds. It admitted its first 10 patients on 8 June.  In the North West, teams are making hospitals bigger by building additional structures. 

