M.O.H.W. Acquires a Million Dollars Worth of Equipment for COVID Services at the K.H.M.H.

The Ministry of Health and Wellness today handed over a million dollars worth of equipment to improve the COVID-19 services at the Karl Heusner Memorial Hospital.  The equipment was acquired under the Briceño administration. The national referral hospital had requested the equipment in March of 2020 for its COVID Isolation Unit. The unit has since grown to accommodate up to twenty-three persons, each with accompanying beds, ventilators, and patient monitoring units. News Five was at the brief handing over ceremony this afternoon.

Michel Chebat

Michel Chebat, Minister of Health & Wellness

“As you all know the ventilators are critical for us and so are the high flow machines. As a matter of fact, the use of the high flow machines, in many instances, help to obviate the need to need to use the ventilators. So the equipment you see here are critical in the fight against COVID.”

Michelle Hoare

Michelle Hoare, C.E.O., K.H.M.H.A.

“In terms of the COVID isolation management, it was planned for a ten-bed response. Of course we had to implement a surge plan and with the surge plan, there were additional beds allocated for COVID response. So we are at a total of twenty-three COVID beds and thirteen beds for suspect cases. These were outstanding for us for some time and so we are very pleased that we are now able to get the quantities of ventilators and patient monitors that we need to efficiently and effectively manage our patients in the COVID unit.”

Andre Sosa

Dr. Andre Sosa, Chairman, K.H.M.H.A. Board

“Typically for one patient, you need four infusion pumps and we’ve had to do without for a very long time.  So we have now thirty new infusion pumps, eighty in total that we’ve received from the ministry. It makes it easier to be able to provide the medications in a timely manner so that the outcomes can be better.”