TIJUANA ARENA TRANSFORMS INTO TEMPORARY HOSPITAL
Zonkeys facility set to provide care for non-critical patients
The basketball arena home to the Tijuana Zonkeys completed its transformation to a COVID-19 hospital ward Wednesday, with a staff from Doctors Without Borders ready to accept the first patients.
Government authorities and the nonprofit Apoyemos Tijuana have been working over the past several weeks to temporarily outfit the arena as an overflow facility to provide treatment for non-critical COVID-19 patients and help relieve the Tijuana General Hospital, which is at 75 percent capacity.
Starting Wednesday, some patients were to be transferred from the General Hospital to the makeshift unit to conclude their treatment. The Baja California’s Secretary of Health will oversee operation of the facility in collaboration with Doctors Without Borders.
The facility is equipped with 50 beds, rest areas, bathrooms and showers for patients, a special care area, and a sanitation area for medical personnel.
A space outside the hospital will be set up to provide information and counseling to family members of patients.
The medical team will consist of 120 people, more than 60 percent of whom will be health workers recruited from other parts of Mexico that have been less affected by the coronavirus, according to Doctors Without Borders. The medical staff is expected to remain onsite for six to eight weeks.
“Through this support, we want to relieve the enormous workload of health workers who are responding to this pandemic and help alleviate the suffering of patients,” said María Rodríguez Rado, Doctors Without Borders’ COVID-19 emergency response coordinator in Mexico.
As of Wednesday, there were 1,037 positive cases and 203 deaths from COVID-19 in Tijuana. Baja California is the state with the third-highest number of reported cases (1,962) and the second-highest death toll (298) in Mexico.
Doctors Without Borders came to Tijuana because it is a strategic point in the effort to combat the pandemic in Mexico and also home to many asylum seekers, migrants and deportees, many of whom are homeless and don’t have access to adequate health care, the nonprofit said.
There are currently three designated COVID-19 hospitals in Tijuana, all public facilities — Clinics 1 and 20 of the Mexican Institute of Social Security, as well as the Tijuana General Hospital.
However, authorities are concerned there will not be enough medical personnel if cases continue to increase. In their daily report Wednesday, the Baja California government highlighted a call to hire more medical staff.
Julio Violante, a native of the state of Morelos in Mexico, is one of the doctors in charge of patient care with Doctors Without Borders.
“It is a challenge and an opportunity to help the health system and above all, the people who are being most affected by this situation,” he said.
Once patients being treated at the Zonkeys facility are discharged, they will be asked to continue to selfisolate at home and continue to communicate with medical personnel, Violante said.
alexandra.mendoza @sduniontribune.com