The pressure on the health care system in the Canary Islands due to COVID-19 is continuing to increase, with 70 people admitted to ICU and 427 hospitalized in wards, as of yesterday. The occupancy rate of the Canary Islands ICUs per 100,000 inhabitants is 15%, which is only surpassed by Catalonia and the Balearic Islands, however, in Tenerife ICU occupancy is around 20%. While the occupation of beds in wards has now reached 8%, a figure higher than the national average.
The increase in infections in recent weeks has led Canarian hospitals to activate their contingency plans. In Tenerife, which currently has 47 Covid patients in ICU and 296 admitted to wards, the Candelaria Hospital has the worst healthcare pressure, accounting for 198 COVID admissions, enabled in six wards with coronavirus patients and a seventh already prepared.
In the ICU, 27 of the 30 beds are occupied, with three closed operating rooms where 11 beds have been installed with a respirator for possible critical patients, while the REA area is the extended ICU for non-Covid patients.
Added to this is the lack of medical and nursing staff to cover the activity for the summer holidays, and the request for volunteers from other areas to reinforce the services of IMU, for internal medicine and Pulmonology.
For its part, the Hospital Universitario de Canarias (HUC) has four wards activated for Covid, and currently has 70 Covid patients in wards and 18 in ICU beds.
