Marek Krajčí, Health Minister (source: TASR)
Health Minister Marek Krajčí has signed off the purchase of 88 lung ventilators needed for patients suffering from COVID-19 who are in serious condition.
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“The Health Ministry is preparing for a scenario where we would have at our disposal more than 1,000 ventilators for the whole area of Slovakia,” Krajčí told the TASR newswire.
About a week ago, the government agreed on the delivery of another 300 machines from the producers of assisted breathing equipment, Chirana Medical Stará Turá.
The company should deliver the machines to Slovak hospitals by late June. According to the model produced by the Institute of the Health Policy working under the Health Ministry, it is expected that the peak of the epidemic will come in early July when about 1,030 people will need lung ventilation.
Re-profiling of the hospitals in three phases
Minister Krajčí also informed that Slovak hospitals will be re-profiled in three phases. He added that Slovakia is not even in the first phase, as community transmission in Slovakia has not been proven yet.
In the initial phase, there are about 500 beds ready for patients. If this capacity is filled, there will be three phases of re-profiling. The first would impact 11 key hospitals with a capacity of about 2,200 beds. The second would include the complete re-profiling of 22 hospitals and the third phase would provide 31,000 beds.
“Let’s hope we will not need to use it,” Krajčí said for TASR.
