120% rise in Oxygen-dependent patients within 04 days!

The Government Medical Officers’ Association (GMOA) estimates that the number of oxygen-dependent Covid patients in the country has increased by 120% in the last 4 days up to yesterday (31).
The secretary of the GMOA Dr Senal Fernando says that there were 149 patients who needed oxygen on the 27th of May and that number has increased to 330 by yesterday.
With this growth, an increase in the number of critically ill patients and deaths can be expected in the coming days.
According to the website of the Epidemiology Unit, the number of active Covid patients today is 33140.
Of this number, 17,502 are in the public sector treatment and intermediate treatment centres, while the private sector and run by the Army controlled treatment centres hold close to 6,800 patients.
Accordingly, there are nearly 8000 identified Covid infected people in society who should be referred to the treatment centres.
Therefore, the association emphasizes that a relevant system should be established as soon as possible to take care of these patients at home.
According to the Government Medical Officers’ Association, there are 94 Disease Treatment Centers and 93 Intermediate Treatment Centers in Sri Lanka as of yesterday (31).
The total number of beds in these institutions is 23678.
Of these beds, 17583 are full of patients and 6095 are empty.
However, the Secretary of the Government Medical Officers’ Association (GMOA) said that despite the vacancies, there is a complex situation in the hospitalization of patients at home due to lack of patient management and updating of data and lack of human resources transport issues etc.