Justicia Shipena

Windhoek Central State Hospital has suspended all non-emergency referrals from regions to the hospital a week earlier than it is supposed to in preparation for the festive season.

The hospital superintendent, Dawid Uirab, said that the spike in new Covid-19 infections had influenced the earlier closure.

“Usually, every year mid-December, the referrals from the region come to an end for the festive season around the 18 or 20 December,” said Uirab.

“It is not only covid specific, it is a usual break that we take in December but just made a week earlier now because of the rise in the number of covid.”

Hence, this week will be the last week the referral buses will be bringing patients from the regions to the hospitals.

“After this week, they will just come to pick up the patients that are already referred.”

Uirab stated that they are also not allowing visitors to restrict the number of movements within the hospital.

“Expect for very ill patients who will be allowed on an individual basis by the unit managers within the hospital.”

Earlier this year, as the country was battling the third wave, the health ministry also suspended all non-emergency referrals to both Central and Katutura Intermediate State hospitals.

Moreover, this was done to facilitate and accommodate Covid-19 patients.

At that time, the hospitals were overwhelmed due to the sharp increase in covid-19 cases and the beds were fully booked.

Hence the hospitals needed to decongest, and all cases that were able to wait were fully suspended.

Furthermore, only emergency and urgent operations were performed in the hospitals’ theatres until the surge of new infections relaxed.

Currently, 26 people are hospitalised due to Covid-19, of which two are in the intensive care unit (ICU).

Of those hospitalised, one has received one dose of the Covid-19 vaccine and two are fully vaccinated. The health ministry said the cases ICU are not vaccinated.

Namibia now has 129 930 confirmed cases and 812 active cases with a recovery rate of 96.6%.