The coronavirus (COVID-19) surge in the Bahamas has pushed the Princess Margaret Hospital (PMH) to the brink of collapse.
The Intensive Care Unit, isolation wards and even external tents are occupied by people either battling the virus or seeking urgent medical care for other ailments.
The morgue is also over flowing with bodies and the hospital has acquired a refrigerated container to store them until they are claimed by relatives.
The morgue is designed to hold about 73 bodies but PMH Assistant Director of Communications, Thelma Rolle, said there are over 250 bodies awaiting collection.
Fortunately, identification of bodies resumed today and the numbers are expected to decline.
Health care workers are also engaging in a sickout that has affected the PMH along with the Grand Bahama Health Services (GBHS) and Sandilands Rehabilitation Centre (SRC).
The Public Hospital Authority (PHA) and PMH appealed to Bahamians to utilise community clinics for non-emergency care.
Members of the media were given a tour of PMH to see first-hand what’s taking place.
Senior physician Dr Raquel Davis said her co-workers are under severe strain as they battle the relentless spread of infection.
She said hospital facilities are at a critical level.
“Right now I have been having doctors calling us over the last two to three days from Abaco, Andros, they are calling from Eleuthera. They have patients either symptomatic and testing positive or they need to investigate for COVID. I have nowhere to put them and so I have to delay their transfer,” she said.
“The other physician I spoke to from Abaco yesterday, he had three patients and he had been calling for two days. And I felt so horrible that I said that I had to make space for at least one of your patients so that you would not have to feel that burden. I took the patient but after that, I can take no more.”
Davis, who lost her father to the virus, appealed for islanders to observe the COVID-19 restrictions and get vaccinated.
“So please do what is necessary. Social distance, wear your mask, wash your hands. Please for your safety,” she said.
“This particular variant—this delta variant—we have no empirical data that it is in country but we know it’s here. And this is the worse it has been for the whole time of the pandemic. People are dying, young people are dying. We have people pull up at the critical care block, not breathing and we do all that we can to assist them but we are limited in our reach and scope.”
The Bahamas has recorded 16,668 COVID-19 infections or which at least 3,091 cases are active.