Home Care: Over 36,000 COVID patients recover
Around 36,220 patients who had been referred to home treatment for COVID-19 under the Patient Home Isolation and Management System (PHIMS) had recovered and another 14,152 are recovering at home, Director of Tertiary Services of the Ministry of Health Dr. Ayanthi Karunaratne said. Speaking at a media briefing held at the Health Promotion Bureau yesterday (27), Dr. Karunaratne said that more than 68 per cent of patients currently receiving home treatment are from the Western Province, and the rest of the patients are reported from all the other parts of the country.
She said the patients being treated at home for COVID-19 infection can only call the 1390 hotline if they are registered with their local Medical Officer of Health (MOH).
After informing the area health officer or Public Health Inspector (PHI) that an individual is exhibiting symptoms of Covid infection, the officer will complete the necessary registration after their observations. This service is only for patients between ages 2 - 65 with no medical complications.
The area MOH will register the eligible individual in the PHIMS. Then the MOH will hand over the responsibility of patient care to the Call-Centre and the Medical Care Team through the PHIMS system. After that, everything related to the patient will be done under medical supervision.
The call centre will coordinate with the patient and a medical care team assigned for home care management. An assigned medical officer in the medical care team will conduct an initial assessment and daily monitoring of the patient.
The PHIMS was recently introduced for asymptomatic or mildly symptomatic COVID-19 positive patients as hospitals have exceeded their capacity. Dr. Karunaratne said a number of factors are taken into account when referring Covid patients for home treatment and it was up to the area health officer or the PHI to decide whether to hospitalize or refer the patient for home treatment.
Health Minister Dr. Keheliya Rambukwella said that his Ministry was contemplating introducing COVID-19 self-diagnosis kits for people to test themselves at home to check whether they have been infected.
He was speaking at a discussion with a delegation of trade unions at the Ministry of Health on Thursday.
The Minister said that the Ministry of Health would never provide fake data on COVID or any other health issue and denied allegations of providing fake data and said that some had made baseless allegations due to minor changes in certain technical and time frameworks.
source https://www.dailynews.lk/2021/08/28/local/257835/home-care-over-36000-covid-patients-recover
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