(Barbados Today) Hospital oxygen supplies are being pushed to the brink across the Eastern Caribbean, the Pan American Health Organisation (PAHO) has warned, as a wave of the highly infectious Delta COVID-19 variant causes more deaths and infection rates soar to record levels largely among the unvaccinated.
Expressing concern over the burden on regional health care systems in its latest report, PAHO cited that St Lucia’s health system was struggling with oxygen supply after hospitalizations rose by 214 per cent in the last seven days.
It also noted that insufficient oxygen supplies have been affecting health systems in Grenada, Dominica, and Saint Vincent and the Grenadines.
It added: “the hospitalization rate increased significantly in the range of 37 per cent in Barbados to 1700 per cent in Grenada in the same period.”
Dominica, however, recorded a 13 per cent decline in cases, it said.
