Intensive care unit at RAH still has vacant beds despite virus crisis
The intensive care unit at Paisley’s Royal Alexandra Hospital RAH is still accepting patients, the Express can reveal.
Currently over 100 people are in intensive care wards across Scotland because of coronavirus.
But NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde confirmed on Monday that the RAH still has the capacity to treat patients who require intensive care.
The news comes as First Minister Nicola Sturgeon, right, confirmed the Scottish Exhibition and Conference Centre will become a makeshift hospital to help care for the growing number of coronavirus patients.
T h e G l a s g ow building will house
300 beds within a fortnight and will hold more than 1,000 beds at full capacity.
The government also recently revealed it was working to quadruple the number of intensive care beds across the country.
Figures revealed yesterday show 547 people have been diagnosed with Covid- 19 within the NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde area.
A spokeswoman for the health board said it was – similar to all other regions – working to increase the number of critical care beds at the RAH, as well as the number of ventilators.
She said: “Across Greater Glasgow and Clyde we have been working closely with the Scottish Government and Health Protection Scotland to put robust and coordinated plans in place to ensure our
services are resilient in the face of the outbreak.
“We have a mobilisation plan to double our critical care capacity and in line with all health boards, we will submit a further plan on how we can increase this further.
“This integrated approach will leverage the infrastructure, staff and equipment across the region and allow us to increase access to ventilators and critical care beds.
“Our ICU at the Royal Alexandra Hospital is not full.
“There continues to be capacity to treat those patients that require intensive care.
“We want to thank all staff, including those in primary care, for continuing to care for patients and keep them safe in response to Covid-19.”
A total of 60 people have now died from coronavirus in Scotland.
The new figure is an increase of 13 deaths overnight.
The number of confirmed cases currently sits at 1,993 and, as of Monday morning, there were 108 people in intensive care.
To date 15,895 people have been tested for the virus in Scotland, of which 13,902 tests were confirmed negative.