Health DG urges COVID-19 cases to stay calm while awaiting trip to hospital
BERNAMA
28/12/2020
PUTRAJAYA, Dec 28 -- The Health Ministry has advised COVID-19 positive individuals to remain at home until medical personnel from district health centres arrive to take them to their designated hospitals.
Health director-general Tan Sri Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah said they need to be patient as the number of COVID-19 positive individuals has risen, causing delays in the logistics of transporting patients to hospitals.
“There really are delays in transporting (positive patients) to hospital, so my advice is to wait and remain calm.
“Isolate yourself from family members and always be in contact with the district health centre for updates,” he said at a media conference on COVID-19 here today.
He added that the ministry was considering suggestions that COVID-19 individuals undergo quarantine at their own homes.
He said there were certain criteria that would need to be followed if COVID-19 positive individuals were to be quarantined at home.
“First, we need to see the suitability of the house, room and bathroom and secondly, the health assessment tools, which is the ability of personnel to monitor the patient’s health levels at home,” he said.
Dr Noor Hisham said currently the ministry maintains the policy that positive patients need to be quarantined at hospital.
Regarding the surge in cases involving workers, Dr Noor Hisham said there were suggestions that workers' dormitories be used as quarantine centres.
“Previously there were dormitories that were used as quarantine centres for level one and level two positive cases, which are cases with light symptoms.
“We have used this suggestion involving the Teratai cluster where the Block A and B dormitories were used as quarantine centres,” he said.
Dr Noor Hisham said the Health Ministry's capacity in handing COVID-19 cases was still sufficient with 120 screening hospitals, 50 treatment hospitals, 63 laboratories, and over a million of Rapid Test Kits (RTK) procured so far.
On the ministry's facilities in the Klang Valley, he said there are six facilities with a total of 11,493 beds and the usage rate was at 58 per cent.
Dr Noor Hisham said 89 to 90 per cent of cases were still in categories 1 and 2, with asymptomatic or mild symptoms, while cases in categories 3 to 5 saw an increase to 11 per cent from seven per cent.
