All full, stay home! Sarawak health chief pleads with public

Health authorities in Sarawak today said ICUs in the state are overrun with patients, urging members of the public to play their part in staying at home as infections continue to mount.

“Our ICU beds are overrun or in other words full across Sarawak,” state health department director Dr Chin Zin Hing said in a statement.

“Doctors are working very hard every day to turn over the ventilators or ICU beds so that the next patient that needs it can benefit from it. No amount of ventilators will be sufficient.

“We are in a crisis and I strongly appeal to you all to play your part. Please stay at home!”

Chin said if Covid-19 transmissions are not curbed, 10% to 20% of cases would need hospital admission and 5% to 10% would need ICU care.

In Sarawak, he said, there were only 53 ICU beds in four major hospitals.

“At the moment, at all major hospitals in Sarawak we are running 92 ICU beds. All full!” he said, adding that each bed would be used for an average of 10 days.

According to the Sarawak Disaster Management Committee, occupancy of Covid-19 ICUs at hospitals in the state has reached 77%, with 70 patients in 92 beds.

“Sibu Hospital is treating 35 Covid-19 patients in the ICU and Sarawak General Hospital is treating 11 patients in the ICU.

“In Bintulu Hospital, there are six Covid-19 patients in the ICU, five in Miri Hospital, nine in Kapit Hospital and four in Sarikei Hospital,” it said in its daily statement.

Sarawak also recorded another three clusters today, bringing the total number of active clusters in the state to 83.

It recorded 433 new Covid-19 cases today, 61.89% of which were detected in the districts of Miri, Kapit, Sibu, Kuching and Belaga.

Sarawak has recorded 38,816 cases since the outbreak was first detected in the country.