PUTRAJAYA, March 26 — Private hospitals will be asked to treat Covid-19 infected patients if public intensive care units (ICU) are overwhelmed, the Ministry of Health (MOH) said today.
“If the ICU at public hospitals is full, then private hospitals may have to make their ICUs available to treat patients,” its director-general Datuk Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah told a media briefing here.
Currently, private hospitals have been joining the fight by offering tests for Covid-19 for those who are concerned over their status.
The country’s Covid-19 infection cases hit 2,000 cases today, with over 230 new cases and four more deaths reported.
Infectious diseases experts have warned that Malaysia’s cases would peak in the next few weeks, with the number of infection cases possibly reaching up to 6,000 in a worst-case scenario before stabilising.
The government had said that the extension of the movement control order announced yesterday is meant to stem and keep the infection rates as low as possible, although it stopped short of stating if the added restriction would be effective.
Meanwhile the MOH has yet to give its own projection of infection cases expected in the next few weeks.
Dr Noor Hisham had told the daily media briefing yesterday that it is battling hard to keep the infection curve low and hoped Malaysia will not hit 6,000 cases.
