With medical teams under pressure again in hospitals across the islands as the number of covid patients being admitted to hospital has risen over the past month, I find it hard to believe that there are only 300 intensive care beds in the Balearics and that is including the private sector.
With a standing population of over one million and a floating population which, during a normal year, can peak at three million due to the influx of visitors, the figure seems very low. No wonder hospital staff are feeling the pressure, I am amazed so many doctors and nurses are still able to cope after the 18 months they have been through.
Surely, now that we are so far down the line in this pandemic, with experts warning of continual spikes in covid cases, why have more intensive care beds not been made available or bought?
At the very start of the pandemic the Balearic government shelved out over three millions euros for covid equipment from China, which was later investigated, who did the procurement?
Surely it was obvious that hospital beds were going to be in big demand and that the pressure on intensive care units was going to rise significantly - why was that not taken into account and acted on?
A big lesson has been learnt, I hope, and the number of ICU beds has got to be increased.