MANY people are treating themselves at home for Covid-19, taking the drug Ivermectin, used to treat animals, and other antibiotics, getting more ill, refusing to be taken to the hospital and eventually presenting themselves at the accident and emergency (A&E) Departments in critical condition.
This was the harsh reality of events presented at the Prime Minister press conference on Saturday.
Both Health Minister Terrence Deyalsingh and Principal Medical Officer of Health Dr Maryam Abdool-Richards spoke of the grim situations that healthcare workers continue to face on daily basis with the increasing Covid-19 cases, increasing deaths and increasing patients seeking urgent medical attention at all the regional health authorities.
Deyalsingh said on Friday, he met with the directors of health from all five of the RHAs to discuss the grave situation.
“Doctors (and nurses) who I met with yesterday are tired. They are burnt out. And quite frankly, they are fed up,” the health minister stated.
He said, “What the doctors are telling me is that patients are being treated by their private-sector doctors at home, with a combination of the following drugs: one, ivermectin, two, antibiotics to treat a viral infection. There is a place for antibiotics if you have a secondary bacterial infection, coming out of a viral infection.”
Doctors were amazed when they looked at patients’ case histories he said.
“These patients are being given antibiotics as first-line therapy for a viral infection together with Ivermectin, together with alternative medicine, together with home oxygen. What they reported to me yesterday was that these patients are now hypoxic at home, they don’t have enough oxygen, for three to five days before calling the ambulance and before coming to the hospital system,” Deyalsingh revealed.
When the ambulances arrive for such patients, they need to go immediately into the Intensive Care Unit (ICU).
“Very often, the ambulance has to go two and three times to the same house,” Deyalsingh said.
The minister again pleaded with the population to get a Covid-19 vaccine as statistics continue to show that most persons in need of critical hospital care were not fully vaccinated.
Deyalsingh said, “ The vaccination programme has more or less stalled. Over the past two weeks, we have been averaging roughly about 1, 200 between first doses of a two-dose regime and the Johnson and Johnson one shot per day.”
As of Saturday, there were 626,652 persons with full vaccination status he said.
