Hospital shifting patients, adding tents for COVID influx
Guam's only public hospital, doing their best to make ends meet, with inadequate funds, lack of resources, and a building some say should be condemned. Now, with COVID patients being admitted left to right, GMH is searching for ways to make sure they are able to serve the rush of COVID patients. Hospital Administrator Lillian Posadas says the work is underway.
"We had the DPW clear out and put some, I guess, asphalt, gravel, in this courtyard area, closest to the Z wing," she said. "The purpose of that is to put a tent that will be used by the Guam Fire Department, for their dawning and their docking process."
Posadas spoke on the medical tents to be used on site.
"We are gonna be getting Blue MED tents, I understand they've arrived on island and they are going through the customs clearance process," she said. "That blue med tent, we're gonna use it for overflow of Care 3 covid patients who are then either ready to be discharged home or transferred over to the CIF, so that's what's going on in terms of continuous, ongoing, restructuring, converting our units, our areas, to accommodate patients."
The Blue Med Tents will replace the current "Warrior" tent that is set up near the emergency room. But with storms passing around the island this weekend, Posadas says they're looking into actions they might have to take, should the weather become less than cooperative.
"My understanding is that they are not capable of withholding typhoon winds, and that's why we're putting them under an enclosed area, in the physician's (parking lot) so that there's that protection," Posadas said. "And also in the emergency room we're putting them under the overhang, so there's a little bit of protection there, but you know, if anything, if we need to take it down, then you know, for the safety of the patients and the staff, if we need to take it down, we need to take it down, if we can secure it down more, those are actions that we need to take into consideration."
Along with prepping the facility with the installation of tents, Posadas says they've also been working to make the most of the space they already have.
"At 10 o clock, we're gonna start moving those patients in the pediatrics, the 4th floor, we're moving them down to the 1st floor rehab area, that has been converted, the whole area has been converted to accommodate pediatric patients, and if they need to be on a pediatric intensive care unit level, we've also made that area available for the peds population," she said.
This shift in patients will free up the entire surgical floor, leaving 35 beds ready for use with non-COVID patients, Posadas said.