Private hospitals to receive more public patients

A total of 1,000 private hospital beds will be made available for patients transferred from public hospitals in a bid to ease the pressure on the public healthcare system.

The arrangement was announced by the Private Hospitals Association on Tuesday, which said it was a unanimous decision reached by all of its 13 member hospitals.

It said the beds are mostly reserved for non-Covid-19 patients, but added some hospitals with the suitable facilities will also admit coronavirus patients referred to them.

The association said the 1,000 beds amount to about a fifth of their total capacity, and about a third of healthcare workers who are still able to go to work will be needed to man them.

It said manpower is stretched since more than a third of hospital staff have been infected or are being quarantined, so in order to be able to provide all 1,000 beds, some patients who have recovered will be discharged and the intake of some non-urgent patients will be reduced.