MANDEVILLE, Manchester — A 22-bed field hospital has increased the patient care capacity at Mandeville Regional Hospital amid a continued fluctuation of the number of people admitted to the facility.

Chief executive officer of the Mandeville Regional Hospital Alwyn Miller told the Jamaica Observer that the field hospital is timely as the Type B facility, up to Tuesday morning, had 342 adults and 18 babies admitted there.

“The number fluctuates on a daily basis. We have seen since the start of the year there are those days when the numbers went to as low as 275, not very often. Most times it is still over 300, so the numbers are still high. But we have made adjustments to accommodate the patients who are coming to us,” said Miller as he pointed to the field hospital which was installed just over one month ago.

“We constructed a field hospital for the purpose of accommodating additional inpatients for the internal medicine service in particular. This was completed in February and since then we have accommodated patients there. It is not able to hold as much as we initially forecast, it holds 22 beds,” added Miller.

Minister of Health Minister Dr Christopher Tufton had initially reported that the field hospital would have 30 to 40 beds capacity.

In the meantime, Miller suggested that the Mandeville Regional Hospital continues to be a rescue centre for hospitals in western Jamaica damaged by Hurricane Melissa last October.

“We expect, and we are hopeful, that when those facilities are restored [that] the number [of patients at Mandeville Regional] will decline and this is very likely. As it is right now we still remain prepared, in the event that the numbers are still that high, to retain the excess capacity,” he said.

According to Miller, in addition to the field hospital, patients are being accommodated in modified spaces at Mandeville Regional including the postnatal ward where mothers were previously housed.

“Usually at the end of February into March the number of deliveries would decline, that happened this year and what we now do is to house all the postnatal patients on the maternity ward as well, so there are sufficient beds there, so we just keep those patients up there and then we have repurposed postnatal wards to accommodate internal medicine patients,” said Miller who noted that internal medicine patients are the largest group of people who turn up at the hospital

“We essentially have five wards that are accommodating internal medicine patients at this point in time,” Miller explained.

When asked about staffing challenges and human resource Miller was optimistic as he said some health workers were transferred to Mandeville Regional while others have been enrolled.

“They have adjusted to the demands on them. We have been fortunate to have received staff from Black River who were not being engaged [there] at this time, because of the circumstances, so they have been reassigned to Mandeville to assist us,” he said.

“We have gone a little bit further in that we have recruited additional nurses and doctors to help to bolster the staffing complement and this has helped us. It has relieved some of the pressure among the staff to reduce the likelihood of burnout and so forth, so at this point in time we are still holding strain,” added Miller.

An external view of the 22-bed field hospital at Mandeville Regional Hospital. (Photo: Kasey Williams)