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Medical experts urge President to impose travel restrictions or face disaster
View(s):Sri Lanka’s powerful medical professionals yesterday urged President Gotabaya Rajapaksa to immediately restrict the movement of people across the island, stopping short of recommending a country-wide lockdown to avoid having to impose curfews later, as reports came in of a surge in COVID-19 cases.
Worried about an impending disaster, four premier medical groups warned in a letter to the President that “healthcare workers are likely to be physically and mentally drained and the fatigue in them, induced by the impending disaster, is going to be considerable and unavoidable.”
Urging the President to step in before it is too late, the groups said COVID-19 deaths may reach unprecedented levels and a grave national catastrophe is a real threat in the near future.
The joint letter was signed by the heads of the Sri Lanka Medical Association (SLMA), the Government Medical Officers’
Association (GMOA), the Association of Medical Specialists (AMS) and the SLMA Intercollegiate Committee (SMIC). It was copied to ministers in charge of health and related subjects and senior government officials.
Among its recommendations to the President on tackling the crisis were selected lockdowns be based on scientific evidence; maintenance of supplies to and services provided by selected essential services sectors and economic hubs; authorisation of the isolation of families at home along with home management of asymptomatic cases; strengthening of lab services island-wide for the diagnosis of COVID-19 with PCR testing; and implementation of widespread vaccination of adequate doses as early as possible.
“We hasten to convey to you that our concerted efforts are always dedicated towards strengthening your hand in gaining control over this nasty virus. If all of us do not put our collective shoulder to the wheel, the authorities may be compelled to implement even stricter lockdown control measures as well as even curfews, to try and control the ravages of this pandemic,” the health professionals said, adding: “… it should be clearly reiterated that if the government does not act now, it would mean even more severe and sustained hardships for the general populace in the near future”.
The group said that healthcare resources are being overwhelmed owing to the rapid increase in the usage of all health sector beds and healthcare facilities by COVID-19 patients, while the number of those requiring oxygen is rising exponentially and very soon “we might face a COVID-19 disaster of unprecedented proportions”.
The letter said that since early April, requests to laboratories for PCR testing had been increasing exponentially with all laboratories working twice or so above the capacity that could be safely accommodated. “In such a scenario of an inundation of these facilities, we may even be compelled to make decisions as to confine testing only to selected patients who could be provided in-hospital care,” it said.
The three-page letter said that the facilities for non-COVID-19 diseases are being curtailed and even deprived while their management is getting neglected, leading to an unavoidable increase in deaths of patients with non-COVID-19 diseases.
“… It has become essential to provide relief to overwhelmed hospitals to do everything possible to buy time until at least 60 percent of our people are vaccinated. The medical aspect of the battle against COVID-19 has its economic implications and if the spread is not rapidly brought under control, the cost will further escalate exponentially,” the letter added.