The overflow of Covid-19 cases in Bangkok is being sent to adjacent Samut Prakan and Samut Sakhon provinces for treatment, it was revealed on Tuesday.
Health permanent secretary Kiatiphum Wongrajit said that Samut Prakan and Bang Phli hospitals in Samut Prakan had converted two dormitories and an auditorium at Dhonburi Rajabhat University's Samut Prakan campus into field hospitals, with 920 beds available.
About 400 Covid-19 patients were receiving treatment at the field hospitals on the campus. They were either asymptomatic or had only mild symptoms, Dr Kiatiphum said.
Some who were already in a stable condition had been transferred there from Samut Prakan Hospital and from Bangkok and other nearby provinces.
The field hospitals helped speed up disease control, he said.
Health inspector-general Narong Apikulwanit said cooperation between public and private hospitals in Samut Prakan ensured there were enough hospital beds for Covid-19 cases with serious symptoms, including from other provinces within the greater Bangkok area.
This month Samut Prakan logged 1,176 Covid-19 cases, 744 of whom were at hospitals and including 67 with lung inflammation and seven who depended on ventilators, he said.
Taweesilp Visanuyothin, spokesman for the Centre for Covid-19 Situation Administration, said that Samut Sakhon was also receiving Covid-19 cases from Bangkok and would reopen its field hospitals for this purpose. The province had been an epicentre of Covid-19 in a previous wave late last year.
He said that on Monday there were 201 Covid-19 cases waiting for hospital beds.
Bangkok city clerk Silpasuay Raweesangsoon said 37 Covid-19 cases in the capital were waiting for hospital beds. They included infected young and elderly family members and autistic children who could not be admitted to a field hospital.
She hoped Bang Khunthian Geriatric Hospital could admit all of them on Tuesday. She said there were 1,700 beds at field hospitals in the capital.