Friday, 29 March, 2024
HomeWeekly RoundupEastern Cape wants museums and hostels as field hospitals for risky self-isolators

Eastern Cape wants museums and hostels as field hospitals for risky self-isolators

The Eastern Cape government plans to turn 18 state-owned properties, such as museums and hostels, into field hospitals after they found that people engaged in risky behaviour while self-isolating, reports News24. Premier Oscar Mabuyane announced that the province was looking at ways to ensure that less people put their communities at risk by engaging in "inappropriate and dangerous" behaviour. He said the provincial coronavirus command council made the decision in order to prevent the further spread of the virus.

Mabuyane said: "Looking at the numbers of people in self-isolation in our province, we have taken a decision that in order to avoid the risk associated with inappropriate and dangerous behaviour by some of the people self-isolating in their homes, more positive cases should be isolated under supervision for us to reduce local spread and avoid a rapid increase in the positive caseload.

"We have also taken a decision to convert 18 state-owned facilities, like museums, schools' hostels, nursing colleges (and) training centres in all districts and metropolitan municipal areas of our province, into field hospitals to give us 2,080 beds, which include 218 high care beds. We plan to have these field hospitals ready soon so that we are able to accommodate more people who will be needing hospitalisation and isolation."

 

[link url="https://www.news24.com/news24/southafrica/news/eastern-cape-to-turn-museums-hostels-into-field-hospitals-to-combat-risky-self-isolation-behaviour-20200707"]Full News24 report[/link]

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