By Chantalé Fletcher
SIXTY-FOUR Covid-19 patients in 2021 were admitted to the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) in Tobago with 18 recorded deaths.
This according to head of the Department of Internal Medicine at Scarborough General Hospital Dr Ogonna Okeke who spoke at the Division of Health, Wellness and Family Development virtual presser on Thursday.
“A pandemic of the unvaccinated,” he described
Dr Okeke said more than 90% of patients admitted in the (ICU) were unvaccinated.
He made reference to the end of March 2020, where there were six ICU admissions and discharges with no deaths recorded.
Dr Okeke said, “The longest stay in Covid ICU was two days and the shortest stay was one day.”
He stated the question was: “Who do you save and who doesn’t make it?”
Dr Okeke said, “No one wants to go and test, much less and try their luck in getting ill and have to be in the ICU, this is where vaccines come in.”
He said, “The Department of Medicine and Department of Accident and Emergency have been the ones taking the brunt since they opened and have continued to be the ones doing that.”
In referring to staff, Dr Okeke stated they were focused on saving the lives of patients and such became close with patients in terms of knowing their history.
In terms of isolation, the experience for anybody going there was worse than being in a prison, he said.
Dr Okeke explained that anyone coming around persons in the ICU would be dressed in personal protective equipment (PPE) such as masks and googles while practicing extra preventative measures.
He said, “There were patients that survived while in ICU, who asked to be vaccinated.” This he described as a level of desperation.
Dr Okeke said, “Most people think that it wouldn’t affect them, but when you get in there; you see life and death flash in front of you. It was not a nice experience and you wouldn’t wish that on your worst enemy.”
He added that staff were there every day and gotten to a point of physical and emotional fatigue.
Dr Okeke said that in other countries there were mandatory vaccinations.
He said, “It may get to a point where employers may get sued if they cannot create a safe work environment for clients and employees.”
Dr Okeke made reference to the United States which was already ahead that persons in the workplace should be vaccinated.
He said that this initiative was geared to protect persons who couldn’t get vaccinated such as pregnant women, children who need to back to schools, persons on chemotherapy and the elderly who are unable to get the vaccine.
“It is not about ourselves but it is about protecting others and the environment,” he said.
Dr Okeke said, “If (the) Delta (variant) gets into the hospital and a department like medicine shuts down, then there will no real function. You will a building with people walking around but you will not have functional staff to even take care of non-Covid patients.”
He added that non-Covid patients have been affected where by non-elective surgeries have been cancelled, clinic sizes were reduced certain wards were reviewed and other parts of the hospital cannot function at full capacity to care for non-covid persons.
Dr Okeke stated that vaccination will be able to mitigate some of these issues.
