NKTI at Full Capacity Due to Rise in COVID-19, Leptospirosis Cases

The National Kidney and Transplant Institute on Sunday said it would limit emergency room admissions after it reached full capacity due to a rise in COVID-19 and leptospirosis cases.

The NKTI's COVID-19 hospital beds and five tents are fully occupied, with more than 50 patients in the emergency room, the hospital said in an advisory.

"We have to limit our admission at the ER to emergency, urgent, and renal cases only. Other cases may have to be transferred to other hospitals," it added.

The NKTI said it opened its gym for leptospirosis patients and installed dialysis machines for exclusive use of these cases. It also converted its peritoneal dialysis ward to suspected COVID-19 cases and allowed them to use their modular hemodialysis facilities.

Beginning Monday, NKTI will also limit its Internal Medicine and Nephrology outpatient consultations so that medical and nursing staff can be reassigned to where they are needed the most.

"We then ask from the Department of Health for staff augmentation. Our surgeries are confined only to those which have been previously scheduled in the next two weeks and for patients who are already in the hospital so as not to compromise our patients," it said.

"We had voluminous backlogs in the past ECQ last year, especially on our renal, urologic, and vascular access cases and we do not want it to happen this year," it added.