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Prime Minister Florin Citu stressed on Tuesday, in southern Craiova, the urgency of increasing the number of ICU beds for COVID-19 patients to 1,600, so that the authorities can make sure they will not have problems in managing the pandemic, adding that there are resources at their disposal to achieve this goal, according to AGERPRES.
"I went to the CNCCI [the National Centre for Intervention Coordination and Management] meeting on Sunday and the information I received then was not very good, the number of ICU beds had decreased since the beginning of the year and until now, although I said very clearly that I do not want to see this, but some hospital managers have decided to reduce the number of ICU beds, (...) about 100 beds. This is why I asked very clearly and urgently to have the number of beds increased to 1,600, this is the new target for CNCCI. I know the Health Ministry had, yesterday, a meeting or two on this topic, we urgently need to increase the number of ICU beds to 1,600 at least to make sure that we will not have any problems," said Florin Citu, who was on a working visit in Dolj County.
The prime minister stressed that resources are not lacking to achieve this goal.
"All ministries, and especially the Ministry of Health, have the necessary resources to increase the number of beds," Citu said.
Asked how many vacancies in the ICUs there are at this time at national level, the head of the Executive said: "The situation of ICU beds is already the one I presented, we have 1,408 beds, so there are vacancies, maybe they are not in areas where there are sick people".
"In Bucharest, as well, (...) at least 13 beds are being added, there is a mobile truck. It is exactly what I called on the Ministry of Health, to come up with solutions, to increase the number of beds to 1,600. Yesterday, I know that they had a meeting, I have not yet had a discussion with the Ministry of Health on this topic, but I asked the Inspection to pay a visit to every hospital and see what the real situation of the ICU beds is and to make sure that nothing happens to the beds and their number no longer decreases and it has to be increased. Today I did not receive this report, I know there are [the ICU beds] the ones I reported, the 1,408, I do not have a report after I having presented this information, but tomorrow a Government meeting will take place and I hope we know how things stand. I haven't received any report today," Prime Minister Florin Citu also declared.
