The Kyunghyang Shinmun:
After the Central Guidance Team came to Hubei, Vice Premier Sun Chunlan vowed to win the war against the epidemic in Wuhan and Hubei. It was reported that due to lack of hospital beds, some patients could not be received and treated promptly. Among more than 60,000 confirmed COVID-19 cases in Hubei province, over 40,000 are located in Wuhan, so how many hospital beds are available now? How many patients are there in Wuhan? How many hospital beds can be guaranteed right now? Thank you.
Lian Weiliang:
Thank you for your question. There was indeed an insufficient amount of hospital beds at the early stage of the outbreak, therefore some patients were unable to gain access to timely treatment at the hospital and then there were some serious cross infections. This is distressing. The Central Guidance Team in Hubei has implemented the important instructions of General Secretary Xi Jinping, and in accordance with the requirements of Premier Li Keqiang and Vice Premier Sun Chunlan, has explicitly required the province to ensure that beds are sufficient and all patients are admitted and treated. The Central Guidance Team in Hubei is working together with provincial and municipal governments, day and night, to achieve the goal of providing sufficient beds.
We came up with the measures of increasing the number of designated hospitals and temporary hospitals converted from gyms, convention or exhibition centers, as well as transforming qualified quarantine sites into places of treatment. We require 30,000 beds respectively in Wuhan's designated hospitals and temporary hospitals and 10,000 beds in quarantined places of treatment. Therefore, there will be a total of more than 70,000 beds that can be used to admit and treat patients. To support Hubei's medical treatment capacity building, Wuhan's in particular, the central government has allocated more than 700 million yuan ($99.6 million) of fiscal funds in three consecutive batches.
As of this morning, 30,000 designated hospital beds have been fully assigned to specific hospitals, of which 24,000 beds have been equipped with medical staff and are now qualified for treating patients. A total of 25,000 beds have been set up in temporary hospitals, of which 12,600 beds have been equipped with medical staff and are now qualified for treating patients. In addition, 4,000 beds are now available at quarantined places of treatment. To achieve the goal of providing sufficient beds we must make sure that there are always 3,000 to 4,000 beds available in designated and temporary hospitals to admit and treat patients at any time.
In order to ensure that patients can be admitted to the hospital smoothly, we need to make efforts to ensure sufficient medical staff and supplies, as well as logistics services, so as to let patients be treated with peace of mind and medical staff be relieved of worries. Thank you.
