RIGA, Oct 8 (LETA) - Jekabpils regional hospital has cut the number of scheduled surgeries by 20-30 percent, LETA learned from the hospital's spokeswoman Lasma Vindule.

As the number of hospitalized Covid-19 patients is growing, the hospital declared the state of high readiness on Wednesday, which means that chronic care and therapy patients are transferred to lower-level hospitals.

In order to ensure the capacity of the intensive care unit to admit Covd-19 patients in severe condition, the hospital made a decision on reducing the number of scheduled surgeries.

Jekabpils regional hospital at present is treating 50 Covid-19 patients with symptoms of medium severity and three patients with severe symptoms. Of the hospitalized patients, three are vaccinated and others are no vaccinated, including all three who are in the intensive care unit.

The number of Covid-19 beds has been increased to 55 beds for patients with symptoms of medium severity and nine beds in intensive care unit.

As reported, the State Operational Medical Commission on Thursday declared a state of emergency in medicine, Health Minister Daniels Pavluts (For Development/For) confirmed to LETA.

This means that healthcare institutions will have more leeway to decide how to utilize their resources in order to provide healthcare services to Covid-19 patients as well as other patients.