Too many cases, so self-isolate first, patients told

 

Health director-general Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah says the big number of Covid-19 cases has caused logistic issues and delays in transporting patients to hospitals.

PETALING JAYA: The health ministry is being overwhelmed by the steep increase in the number of Covid-19 cases and director-general Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah has urged those who test positive for Covid-19 but are asymptomatic to self-isolate while waiting for officials to contact them.

Noor Hisham said the health ministry was currently dealing with a large number of cases in the Klang Valley, which had caused logistic issues and delays in transporting patients to hospitals.

In recent days, many patients have complained of long waits for ambulances to pick them up after they had been tested positive. A netizens’ group has, in fact, started a drive to collect names of those who were still waiting for the call from the hospital.

Noor Hisham said a similar situation had occurred in Sabah, adding that the daily four-digit cases lately was due to increased testing among foreign workers.

“Foreign workers have no place to be isolated in… we have thousands here. We are increasing the number of beds to 10,000,” Malay Mail quoted him as saying.

He also advised those self-isolating to keep in touch with their district health offices while waiting to be brought to the hospital.

Noor Hisham’s comments come after a business owner pointed out that three of her employees had tested positive, but have yet to be contacted by the health ministry.

The business owner also said another 15 workers were still awaiting test results, despite promises from the hospital that they would receive the results within 24 to 48 hours.

Malaysia has been recording over 1,000 Covid-19 cases daily, with 1,196 infections and one death yesterday. The total number of cases in the country now stands at 105,096, with 20,233 active cases currently.

The problem has been an ongoing one and is worsening recently.

Noor Hisham said last week that many private labs did not have data integration with the public health information system and Covid-19 tests from the labs may cause a delay.

“If a test result at a private lab comes back positive, the data needs to be integrated into our system. They must inform the district health office, and the follow up action will be done as soon as possible.

“There may be some constraints so in the meantime, stay at home, ” he said. - FMT