RISHARD KHAN
rishard.khan@guardian.co.tt

Ris­ing COVID-19 hos­pi­tal­i­sa­tions have prompt­ed the Min­istry of Health to re­ac­ti­vate two step-down fa­cil­i­ties in the par­al­lel health­care sys­tem.

Ac­cord­ing to Min­is­ter of Health, Ter­rence Deyals­ingh, the de­ci­sion was made on Sun­day.

"This will al­low pa­tients who are just on the cusp of be­ing dis­charged to go in­to a step-down fa­cil­i­ty as we used to have, so that they can spend their fi­nal two to three days, or four days in a step-down fa­cil­i­ty. That will then make room at the hos­pi­tal lev­el for peo­ple who need to be ward­ed," Min­is­ter Deyals­ingh said at Wednes­day's vir­tu­al press con­fer­ence.

He said by ear­ly next week, the Point Fortin Area Hos­pi­tal and the UTT Val­sayn Cam­pus will be re­ac­ti­vat­ed, pro­vid­ing ca­pac­i­ty for 35 and 40 am­bu­la­to­ry pa­tients re­spec­tive­ly.

Since Ju­ly 27, there has been rough­ly a 65 per cent in­crease in peo­ple be­com­ing se­vere­ly ill and be­ing ward­ed for the dis­ease.

Ear­li­er this year, the step-down fa­cil­i­ties were all de­ac­ti­vat­ed due to de­creas­ing hos­pi­tal­i­sa­tion num­bers.