Casablanca Hospitals Overwhelmed as Omicron Surge Fills ICU Beds

At the announcement of the appearance of the Omicron variant, the officials of the Ministry of Health knew that Morocco was heading towards a complicated situation, but not to the point where the intensive care department of the Ibn Rochd University Hospital in Casablanca would be overwhelmed, reports the daily Al Ahdath Al Maghribia, which stresses that all the beds in the intensive care department are occupied, pending the opening of other services to receive new patients.

The situation is likely to worsen according to the specialists, who announce for the coming days, an increase in critical and serious cases. This would be explained by the lack of enthusiasm shown by the population for the national vaccination campaign. Added to this is the boycott of wearing masks, frequent hand washing and social distancing.

As could be expected, it is the Casablanca-Settat region that is the most severely affected. Since the beginning of the pandemic, the region has often found itself in the red in terms of contamination. Currently with the variant, it alone accounts for nearly half of the number of cases recorded daily at the national level and 80% of the daily deaths, explains the newspaper.

According to the newspaper, the number of intensive care beds available in public hospitals has increased from 684 beds at the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic to 5,236 beds at the end of October. In the Casablanca-Settat region, there are 1,616 intensive care beds out of a capacity of 1,929 beds installed at the field hospital set up at the Casablanca Fair, at the Ben Slimane hospital and that of El Jadida.