Only 30 spare intensive care beds countrywide, no seat in Bucharest

There only 30 spare beds intensive care beds for the COVID-19 patients in the entire Romania and there no spare seats in Bucharest, medical sources told mass media on Monday. Romania is practically at the beginning of the third wave of the coronavirus pandemic, with the number of infections on the rise on a daily basis.

A meeting on this situation with the hospitals from Bucharest and Ilfov county took place at the Health Ministry this morning, while another meeting is ongoing with all the hospitals countrywide, in the attempt of finding solutions to increase the number of intensive care seats.

PM Florin Citu asked for the increase of the ICU beds for Covid-19 patients to 1,600, also ordering the State Health Inspection to keep a daily record of the intensive care seats.

Secretary of state Raed Arafat announced on Sunday evening that the mobile hospital in Lectani will be re-opened, while two intensive care mobile units will be set up in Bucharest, at Sfantul Ioan and Victor Babes hospitals.

The mobile hospital from Lectani, Iasi (eastern Romanai), which costed EUR 13 million, was shut down on January 13, with the 17 patients back then being transferred to other hospitals in Iasi. The hospital had not been re-opened ever since.

The PM’s Control Body revealed that the mobile hospitals had numerous problems. The wards reported in the papers as having 80sqm had actually half less of this area. Other issues were the acclimatisation installation and the electrical system that was outdated.

4,383 new daily Covid infections had been reported on Sunday, March 14, with 1,232 patients admitted in intensive care. Bucharest reported 1,179 daily infections with the novel coronavirus on Sunday.

The spokesperson of the “Pantelimon” Hospital told Digi24 that the hospitals are overcrowded again and the number of Covid patients is higher and higher. “This figure of 4,400 new daily infections is not real. It reveals the patients who arrive in the emergency rooms of the hospitals and who are thus officially declared. But, unfortunately, there are more and more patients who don’t declare they tested positive for Covid-19, they buy rapid tests on their own, they conduct them at home and don’t declare they are Covid positive”, said doctor Fiorella Mitoiu.