Cape Town – Only 12% of the beds in Cape Metro hospitals are filled with Covid-19 patients, with hospital beds in the province 70% full.
This was the good news from Western Cape head of health Dr Keith Cloete yesterday, who also revealed that the Garden Route district, which saw the pandemic mature later than the rest of the province, has started to see the beginning of a decline.
“’We can confirm that we have critical and acute care capacity in our rural areas. The Cape Metro acute hospitals are beginning to decrease their Covid bed capacity, because only 12% of the beds in these hospitals are filled with Covid-19 patients.
“They are also reintroducing normal, comprehensive clinical (non-Covid) services. This is very important to provide all the healthcare services our people need.
’’We are also pleased to announce that because of our integrated health platform, that 32 nurses and six doctors from the metropole are now assisting colleagues in rural areas with their Covid response.’’
The 850-bed Covid-19 field hospital at the Cape Town International Convention Centre closed this week after treating 1 502 patients.
Resources from the “Hospital of Hope” will be redistributed to other health centres as Covid-19 cases in the province continue their downward trend. The 338-bed Brackengate facility, which assumes the title of “Hospital of Hope”, will remain open for the foreseeable future – ensuring continued bed capacity.
Resources from the Thusong Covid-19 field hospital in Khayelitsha have also been handed over to Médecins Sans Frontières to be used in Butterworth, Eastern Cape, after the facility was closed.
Cloete said the National Health Laboratory Service in the province no longer had a Covid-19 testing backlog and the criteria for testing would now be expanded beyond healthcare workers and over-55s with comorbidities.
By 1pm on Thursday, there were 5 249 active Covid-19 cases in the Western Cape. This is less than a third of the 17 612 recorded on July 6.
Cloete said there would also be an opportunity to catch up on TB testing using mechanisms put in place to detect Covid-19.
There are also plans for a national “seroprevalence” survey to detect Covid-19 exposure in the general population.
Cloete said the province’s diabetes project also helped doctors to mitigate the effect of Covid-19 on diabetics, one of the most at-risk comorbidity groups.
“Mortality among this high-risk diabetes group who have presented earlier to us is 4.5% compared with the 27%-30% that it was before us introducing this project,” said Cloete.
The health department is looking at its database of diabetics to encourage them to go to a hospital early if they have symptoms.
With a Covid-19 vaccine predicted to be 12-24 months away from being available locally, Cloete said a behavioural change is the only intervention that will prevent fresh outbreaks.
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