Infectious Disease Hospital to be fully operational by August
Guyana’s first Infectious Disease Hospital, which is currently being constructed at the former Ocean View Hotel at Liliendaal, East Coast Demerara, is expected to be fully operational by next month.
The former hotel was chosen by the government to be transformed and used as a dedicated facility for the treatment, isolation and quarantine of COVID-19 patients and to handle any other infectious disease outbreak in the country in the future.
Deputy Chief Medical Officer, Dr Karen GordonBoyle told Stabroek News that the hospital is supposed to be fully operational by August as contractors are almost finished with the construction of the facility.
The Hospital was initially designed and expected to house an Intensive Care Unit, Dr. GordonBoyle said while adding that health authorities however have to look at the number of infectious diseases health professionals, along with how many intensive care health workers there are to work at two different facilities. She noted that they are currently looking at the amount of human resources available presently and how many new graduates of the infectious diseases programme there are.
Additionally she mentioned that there is currently one COVID-19 patient at the hospital, however a number of other suspected cases are currently quarantined there as well.
Previously, the Chief Medical Officer, Dr Shamdeo Persaud, during a walkthrough of the facility, stated that the plan is for the facility to handle three categories of patients; persons who are infected and suffering with the signs and symptoms of the virus, those who are infected but remain asymptomatic, and persons who are suspected cases and need to be quarantined.