K.H.M.H. Says it is Ready for Omicron/Fourth COVID-19 Wave

Today senior management of the Karl Heusner Memorial Hospital Authority appeared on the Open Your Eyes Morning Show to discuss everything COVID. This includes the country commencing its fourth wave as active cases have been increasing by huge numbers daily. While it has not been officially announced, health experts do believe that the spike is indicative that the omicron variant is in Belize and spreading quickly.  Increasing COVID-19 cases adds pressure to the healthcare system, so how ready is the K.H.M.H. for this eventuality?

Chandra Cansino

Chandra Cansino, C.E.O., K.H.M.H.

“There has been a decrease in the number of persons admitted to the COVID unit up to Friday. It was an opportunity for us to get prepared for this inevitable fourth wave. Since then, the numbers have slowly been increasing. Actually on Saturday, we had up to twenty-one patients. We went from twelve up to twenty-one. A lot of these are persons under investigation so they are not confirmed COVID. And up to yesterday evening, we had sixteen persons admitted to the COVID unit of which seven are positive and nine are persons under investigation.”

Dr. Andre Sosa

Dr. Andre Sosa, Chairman, K.H.M.H.A.

“Certainly, there was a lot of experienced garnered in that second year. What we have seen is that as the expertise improved and the equipment available became more abundant, we were able to get better outcomes. There was a large decrease in the percentage of deaths, we had a lot more people going home, back to their families so that was a positive. All of that occurred against the backdrop of staffing difficulties and the shortness of supplies which we, thankfully, have been able to more or less move forward with solving.”