Field hospital coming in two weeks

Minister of Health and Wellness, Dr. the Hon Christopher Tufton, says a field hospital will be established in the Corporate Area within the next two weeks to boost the health sector’s capacity to treat coronavirus (COVID-19) patients.

“We’re now building out the base for that facility,” he said, noting that the hospital will allow for more than 80 additional beds.

He was speaking at the weekly virtual COVID Conversations press briefing from the Ministry’s New Kingston offices on Thursday (September 10).

Dr. Tufton said that the hospital is being established in collaboration with a bilateral partner, and a formal ceremony will be held.

He informed that two additional field hospitals will be established, one on the south coast and the other on the western end of the island.

“We will add a fair bit of capacity to providing additional beds and you will see the manifestations of that over the next few weeks. So, we are definitely moving in that direction as part of the preparation for what is happening,” he added.

Dr. Tufton announced recently that the country has reached the community transmission phase of the virus. This means that there will be significant increases in the number of COVID-19 cases over the next six to eight weeks and that the virus can no longer be easily traced from one person to the other.

In the meantime, the country, on Thursday recorded two additional COVID-19 deaths, bringing the overall number of fatalities to 40.

There were also 74 confirmed new cases, pushing the island’s number of cases to 3,511, as well as 32 recoveries, bringing the total number of recoveries to 1,052.