Additional 19,200 beds on standby to cope with Covid-19 patients

CORONAVIRUS | The government has now prepared an additional 19,200 beds for all Covid-19 patients, including patients under investigation (PUI) by coopting the Health Ministry’s training institutes as quarantine centres.

“We initially planned for 3,400 beds. We have now used the Health Ministry’s training institutes and we have an additional 19,200 beds if we add in all the institutes.

“Cases with no symptoms but are positive, or those who are positive with mild symptoms, we will move them to our training institutes whereas the hospitals will be reserved for moderate or critical cases.

“If the cases continue to increase, maybe we will use these training institutes and the temporary hospital in Malaysia Agro Exposition Park Serdang (MAEPS) which has 600 beds,” Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah said in a press conference in Putrajaya today.

The temporary hospital at Maeps was opened today due to the population density in Kuala Lumpur, he added.

However, if the cases eventually reach a point of increasing more to than 1,000 cases a day, there may be a need to open more temporary hospitals using public halls or indoor stadiums, Noor Hisham said.

The Maeps temporary hospital already has 3,000 staff deployed there, he said, while another 3,500 nurses and assistant medical officers have been taken off their post-basic training to be on duty in hospitals.

“We also encourage volunteer doctors, nurses and so on... to come forward to help with the treatment and also public health.

“So far, we have taken in 1,500 (volunteers), but we have another 1,008 who are waiting for their placements, so we want to know what are their specialities and also their location,” he said.

Maeps, which is in Selangor, is the largest agro park in Asia.

The government had also previously gazetted 409 locations as quarantine centres amid the Covid-19 pandemic.

This includes the Institute Pertanian Serdang, an agriculture research facility located about 10 minutes drive away from Maeps.  -Mkini