Health ministry sets up Covid-19 command centre in Klang Valley

 

Hospital bed capacities for Covid-19 patients have been increased in the Klang Valey, from 345 beds on Oct 1 to 4,739 beds as of Nov 18.

PUTRAJAYA: The health ministry today announced that a Central Region Covid-19 Unified Command Centre has been set up to monitor administration matters and operations at all hospitals as well as low-risk quarantine treatment centres in the Klang Valley.

Health director-general Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah said this was to manage the rise of Covid-19 infections in Selangor, Kuala Lumpur and Putrajaya.

He said the command centre was established with the help of the National Security Council (MKN) and will be led by Selangor health director Dr Sha’ari Ngadiman.

Noor Hisham added that the health ministry was increasing bed capacities in eight health facilities throughout the Klang Valley, following the high number of Covid-19 patients taking up many beds in Hospital Sungai Buloh and Hospital Kuala Lumpur (HKL).

“The number of beds in Selangor, Kuala Lumpur and Putrajaya (for Covid-19 patients) have been increased by nearly 14 times, from 345 beds on Oct 1 to 4,739 beds as of today (Nov 18),” he said.

This includes temporarily converting Hospital Rehabilitasi Cheras into a “hybrid Covid-19 hospital”, and using eight blocks at the health ministry’s training institute in Sg Buloh as low-risk quarantine treatment centres.

Meanwhile, he said the ministry was also increasing screenings in construction sites and factories, following more clusters involving these two types of workplaces.

Noor Hisham had previously said the surge of Covid-19 cases in the Klang Valley was due to workplace clusters, with there being 72 active clusters in the country involving infections among workers.

The largest active workplace cluster is currently the Damanlela Construction Site cluster, which recorded eight new cases today. This brought the total number of infections in the cluster to 1,346. - FMT