Malé, Maldives – The Health Ministry has decided to arrange 24 hour OPD services for Covid-19 patients.
The Health Ministry published a review following the death of 10 year old girl who died due to delays in receiving care, in which they have outlined certain changes to be made in order to prevent another such incident.
According to sources, the girl was unconscious when she was taken to the ER after the ambulance reached the girls home after more than 2 hours 25 minutes since they had called.
This includes developing 24 hour Out Patient Basis care for Covid-19 patients in the greater Malé region. This will enable Covid-19 patients to go and receive care for different conditions on their own. However, the Ministry has not yet revealed any details regarding this change.
In addition to this, a separate service for Emergency Medical Service will be established with a separate hotline for the emergency services.
While OPD services are to be made available for Covid-19 patients, the Ministry allowed for private clinics and hospitals to treat Covid-19 patients last month. ADK hospital has started treating Covid-19 patients following this announcement.
Health Ministry had earlier told that in light of this incident, immediate changes have been implemented by the Ministry to the mechanism that triggers ambulance deployment.
This comes while earlier in May 2021, an ambulance took 1 hour 20 minutes to arrive for someone who collapsed in quarantine. While the Addu Emergency Operations Center were on top of the situation, according to the family they simply did not have the resources. Another incident took place in Malé where it took 4 hours for an ambulance to collect a Covid-19 positive patient who had collapsed in isolation.
In the latest statistics released by HPA, it was detailed that out of the 432 cases recorded yesterday, 249 were from the Malé area, while 154 cases were recorded from inhabited islands. The figures also included 29 cases from operational resorts which brought the total active cases in the country to 21,032.
With this, the total number of Covid-19 cases recorded in the country has reached 66,948 out of which 45,730 patients have made full recoveries, as of 18:00 of June 4, 2021.
While the country is currently going through one of the worst waves that has hit the country in terms of the pandemic, currently there are 213 patients receiving hospitalized care for the virus throughout the country. With majority of the hospitalized patients being in the capital, experts continuously reiterate the importance of taking preventive steps against Covid-19, such as maintaining adequate physical distancing, wearing masks and practicing hand hygiene.
