The last week or so there has been a lot of development in the handling of Covid situation especially so after the commencement of the emergency ordinance. The numbers are not easing in fact increasing despite the call for MCO in most states. Public hospitals are finding it difficult to cope with the burden of admission and the number of critically ill patients have been devastating to say the least.
There has been a change of policy in admission whereby patients who are asymptomatic or with mild symptoms, category 1 and 2 respectively are to be treated at home. The Ministry of health has set up 213 covid 19 assessment centres nationwide to assess patients who are undergoing treatment at home. This assessment is done via a format called Home Assessment Tool (HAT) to look for further deterioration of patients.
To ease the burden on the public healthcare, the private healthcare has been roped in to admit and treat Covid patients. Public hospitals will be termed as hybrid hospitals meaning they admit both covid and non Covid patients. This is not without its own problems obviously. Many of the inpatients in any hospital are of high risk category, above 60 and with comorbidities. It becomes a risk especially when the private hospitals have not been given due warning to take all appropriate measures to be installed to ensure safety of other patients and staff.
To add to the already complex and difficult task of admitting Covid patients into a private hospital, the fact that this is a pandemic would mean most if not all insurance will not cover the patients, leaving patients with hefty bills eventually. It is estimated a day’s cost in ICU to treat a Covid patient could easily come to 10k or even 20k. This if paid by patients or beared by the hospital will eventually take a toll on all.
I believe we are in this situation not just because of the rapid onset of the pandemic but because we were lacking in vision, imagination, leadership and planning. We could have done it better, we could have contained it last year but looking back is not going to help. We need to do our part now.
Thankfully we are united in wanting this to be over, we are together in wanting to help each other. Most private healthcare providers have been admitting patients to the hospital since last week. Sunway Medical Centre has spent a lot on renovation and dedicated a ward with negative pressure and all the necessary measures such as HEPA filtration and uv light to reduce any chance of transmission to the bare minimum. They even have a labor room ready for any mothers with Covid.
We at Beating Hearts are optimistic the worst will be over soon. The national vaccine program will kick off end of February and we hope life will resume as normal eventually but never take lightly of the lessons we learned from the pandemic.
Have a good week ahead. Stay safe.
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Dr Betty Teh
Editor in Chief
Founder of Beating Hearts
