Govt to step up intervention to reduce off-radar Covid-19 deaths

 

The Health Ministry will include some form of monitoring for Covid-19 patients quarantining at home, as well as other forms of interventions, to reduce the number of patients who die outside of health facilities, otherwise known as brought-in-dead (BID) cases.

Health Minister Khairy Jamaluddin said Covid-19 patients not under the supervision of the ministry or any health facilities tend to make up a big part of the daily BID cases.

“So, we want to make sure those not under the care of a health facility or their district health office will be given a referral or placed under supervision.

“That means, they will still be under home quarantine, but they will be placed under supervision, so at least they are being monitored,” Khairy said at a press conference during his visit to Kota Kinabalu today.

For example, the patients may be asked to upload a self-report of the status of their health, and if they start experiencing symptoms that indicate the disease is getting worse, the patient may be called to the nearest hospital, he explained.

Another cause of BID cases, Khairy said, are those who did not get screened for Covid-19 but suffered from a sudden severe onset of Covid-19 and died while they were off the Health Ministry’s radar.

One of the ways he suggested intervention can be done to reduce the number of BID cases is the empowerment of the local community, so that those who are already sick or symptomatic can be reached and sent for treatment.

“So, I have asked, for example in Sabah, for increased efforts from local community leaders and the residential communities to ask their neighbours to monitor those who are sick or may have the symptoms but have not been screened,” Khairy said.

In his trip to Sabah today, Khairy also detailed the resources and manpower the federal government will be sending to the state, which has seen a spike in its Covid-19 figures recently.

Health Minister Khairy Jamaluddin

The federal government will be sending 480 oxygen cylinders, 24 boxes of oxygen regulators and five boxes of Covid-19 medications, which is expected to arrive in Sabah tomorrow.

The Health Ministry will also be preparing a modular Intensive Care Unit (ICU) with a capacity of 10 beds in the Tawau Hospital. This modular ICU is expected to start operating at the end of this month.

There will also be 29 additional ambulances added to the fleet of hospitals in Sabah, Khairy added.

The ministry has also thus far instructed 97 of 150 medical officers who received permanent positions to report themselves for duty in Sabah, with another 50 more expected to start on Sept 13.

Khairy also noted that 78 medical assistants who have been loaned to Selangor will return to Sabah within this week.

In order to ramp up vaccination efforts in Sabah, he also said 2.89 million vaccine doses will be sent to the state in September.

“With that delivery, we are confident that Sabah can increase its daily vaccination rate to 60,000 to 70,000 a day and we are still holding onto the target of 60 percent total adult population in Sabah being fully vaccinated by end of September and 80 percent of total adult population in Sabah will finish vaccination by the end of October,” he said.

To achieve those targets, he said the state government and the state health department has planned 130 outreach programmes throughout September and October, including dispatching mobile vaccination centres. - Mkini