On March 5th, we had 6 beds in our Resp Isolation Ward (RIW) and our first patient. As soon as we opened our RIW and have patients in, we haven't stopped having patients in there. While some patients and/or families are afraid to come to the hospital, others haven't been, and thus our numbers have been increasing. About 2 weeks after we opened up our first RIW, we found ourselves starting to outgrow the 6 beds in our RIW and figured out we needed more.
We had moved out of our old Lab in our Hospital Expansion Project and were talking about using that space for our TB ward as we tore down the old hospital. We had done a little bit of work in there, but not much, so we asked our maintenance team to work to open up the space to make room for beds. In a short period of time, they enabled us to put 14 beds in the old Lab. We are still using this lab and plan to keep using it, but have found that we need to expand even further.
We were almost full, we had 11 patients in our RIW one afternoon and had 2 people waiting for their results and we weren't sure what would happen if we had more come in overnight and we ran out of room. We looked at our options at the hospital and we talked with Jiwaka Province about their Isolation Centers. We realized that just behind our old lab was our old Pediatric Ward.
The old pediatric ward has been used during our Hospital Expansion Project to house things for the project - pipes and cement bags and lots of other things we needed in the Project. Thankfully the project is over, and the old ward was mostly empty, so when we decided late Thursday to try and move in, there was work to do, but not as much as if it happened a few months ago.
Our cleaners and maintenance team set to work and in a short period of time were able to create a space for 16 more beds for our Resp Isolation Ward. We have used all the bed we had, but thankfully we had a lot of mattresses and so we were able to use cinder blocks and pallets and door frames to make beds with our mattresses. We keep working to improve the space, and to add some more green space and another toilet for our patients.
We just got some new oxygen concentrators from UNICEF and WHO, which has enabled us to expand, as we were using all the oxygen concentrators we had in the hospital and the 1st RIW, and so having more made this possible. As we get more patients, we will continue to need more oxygen capacity in concentrators or cylinders and trust that they will be provided as we need them, just like these. We will continue to use our old Lab as our RIW1 and the old Pediatric Ward as our RIW2, for those patients who are getting better and closer to going home. This will enable us to care for 30 patient with Covid at one time.
The old pediatric ward has been used during our Hospital Expansion Project to house things for the project - pipes and cement bags and lots of other things we needed in the Project. Thankfully the project is over, and the old ward was mostly empty, so when we decided late Thursday to try and move in, there was work to do, but not as much as if it happened a few months ago. 