Health Department to roll out additional ICU beds in Gauteng, WC
Health Minister Zweli Mkhize has confirmed that the department is looking to roll out additional ICU beds in Gauteng and the Western Cape as the two provinces battle Covid-19.
Mkhize made the comments during a question-and-answer session with MP in the National Assembly on Wednesday.
"We have also started looking at additional beds in provinces that will be heavily hit. Mainly in Gauteng and the Western Cape,” he said.
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To date the country's health facilities have a combined 5000 ICU beds in both the public and private sectors.
Mkhize said the Department of Health has made an arrangement with the private sector to make use some of its ICU beds.
The cost of the arrangement is still being determined.
"The work we are doing is actually to ensure that when there is the a problem immediately we've got an arrangement to use the private hospital beds which has already started in the Western Cape and its going to be like that in different parts of the country,” Mkhize said.
The number of Covid-19 case is expected to increase exponentially when the country moves to level three of the lockdown on Monday.
As of Wednesday, the number of Covid-19 deaths in the country was sitting at 552