Coronavirus: Singapore
Plan to have up to 1,600 hospital beds for Covid-19 if needed
This is up from the 1,000 beds planned earlier; some elective procedures will be postponed
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The authorities plan to have up to 1,600 Covid-19 hospital beds if needed, up from the 1,000 previously planned, as they accelerate the implementation of ramped-up plans as cases surge.
This is done "at the expense of some degradation of normal services", so some elective procedures will have to be postponed, Minister of Health Ong Ye Kung said at a virtual media conference yesterday by the multi-ministry task force on Covid-19.
Hospitals have barred ward visitors for four weeks from yesterday.
The Ministry of Health (MOH) will increase the beds in community care facilities to 4,600, from about 3,500 currently.
The Government has launched a new class of facilities - community treatment facilities (CTFs), which are better equipped for closer monitoring and management of Covid-19 patients with chronic illnesses.
The first such facility, at the site of NTUC Health Nursing Home in Tampines, opened on Thursday.
"We have commissioned about 300 CTF beds this week," said Mr Ong.
In the coming weeks, MOH will open another 700 such beds at Singapore Expo and another 200 at Sengkang General Hospital, he added.
MOH is seeking help from private sector hospitals and the Singapore Armed Forces to operate the CTFs.
There had been 21 new cases in the intensive care unit (ICU) in the past week, up from nine in the preceding week.
As hospitals here can get almost 300 ICU beds ready at short notice, this is sufficient for current needs.
About 40 per cent of infected people are currently recovering at home and around 15 per cent to 20 per cent are in hospital.
The rest are in community care facilities.
Singapore's director of medical services Kenneth Mak said: "We are monitoring the situation closely, working closely with our hospitals on our preparations and our plans to increase our ICU bed capacity as needed."
Singapore's data, which is consistent with that of other countries, shows that the risk of unvaccinated people with Covid-19 needing ICU care or dying is nearly 12 times higher than those who are vaccinated, he added.
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Correction note: Connect @ Changi clarified that it is not being used as a community treatment facility.
