Israeli hospitals may open additional coronavirus wings amid spike
The internationally-recognized definition of someone who is critically ill is someone who "needs intubation or is in a state of systemic collapse.
By JERUSALEM POST STAFF Israeli Professor Galia Rahavm, head of infectious diseases, is seen in one of the rooms where returning Israelis will stay under observation and isolation at the Sheba Medical Center at Tel Hashomer in Ramat Gan, Israel, February 19, 2020(photo credit: HEIDI LEVINE/POOL/REUTERS)
Professor Galia Rahav, Director of the Infectious Diseases Department in Sheba Medical Center in Tel Hashomer, in Israel said that it is difficult to cope with the most recent wave of the coronavirus pandemic and that, due to the real rise in numbers, "we will soon need to open another wing," according to Israel's N12 news.Rahav said that Sheba may very well need to open another coronavirus wing soon, even though "there is no proper lesson to be learned from the government in terms of investment in medical teams and in coronavirus wings.""There must be a unified definition of who is seriously sick, who is moderately sick and who is lightly sick," she stated, explaining that the World Health Organization (WHO) defined seriously ill as being dependent on the pressure level of oxygen in the blood.Meanwhile, in Israel, "there is no uniformity in the various hospital reports, so I called on the Health Ministry and the infectious disease doctors around the country to fall into line on the subject."Rahav said, according to N12, that the internationally-recognized definition of someone who is critically ill is someone who "needs intubation or is in a state of systemic collapse."A person who is in serious or severe condition is defined as one who has oxygen saturation below 94%, or that his breaths were counted at over 30 in a minute," she continued. "A sick person in moderate condition, on the other hand, is someone who is suffering from a respiratory disease, has been diagnosed with pneumonia in the chest, but without the low oxygen saturation as in the serious cases."She then clarified that the high number of coronavirus cases that people are seeing is real."The rise that we are seeing in the past few days is not related to this or that definition change and it is due to the fact that there is an increase in the number of seriously ill patients," Rahav noted. "We are definitely aware of the increase in the number of people sick in the community and in the hospitals."
