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What is expected from a continuous lockdown?
A continuous lockdown is in place from May 26 to June 14, nearly three weeks.
It is important for the health authorities to analyze the effects honestly and with transparency, urged experts including the Sri Lanka Medical Association (SLMA).
What does Sri Lanka hope to achieve?
- To break the chain of transmission of the virus among a rapidly growing number of people
- To reduce the burden on the overloaded COVID-19 treatment hospitals (looking after symptomatic patients) and the intermediate care centres (ICCs looking after asymptomatic patients).
- To free-up the Intensive Care Unit and High Dependency Unit beds
- To give time to the exhausted hospital staff to catch their breath
- To give some leeway to the public health staff working at ground level including the Medical Officers of Health (MOHs) and the Public Health Inspectors (PHIs) and also the security forces personnel engaging in contact tracing and quarantining people
- To give a breather to the laboratories carrying out the testing (both RT-PCR and Rapid Antigen).
| NHSL dedicates 9 wards to COVID-19 infected Making use of this time, the National Hospital of Sri Lanka (NHSL) has promptly strengthened its facilities. It is recently that the NHSL with nearly 3,500 beds and 7,000 healthcare staff set up dedicated COVID-19 treatment wards. Before explaining what changes have been made recently, a source said that at the beginning of the lockdown the NHSL had about 175 COVID-19 positive patients. Now it has about 160 including 60 who are oxygen-dependent. There are 15 ICU beds for COVID-19 patients. “Even though there is not much of a reduction in numbers, the feeling of being overwhelmed has decreased,” the source said, explaining that the hospital has been able to refurbish 9 wards with more facilities including life-saving wall oxygen. The Sunday Times learns that of the 9 wards with 500 beds, only five are being used, with the other four ready to accommodate more patients. The source explained that patients other than those affected by COVID-19 have got lesser facilities as some surgical and medical wards had to be amalgamated to make room for COVID-19 patients. “We were about to start our routine surgical procedures (such as hernia, hydrocele, etc.) which had been curtailed earlier but that too would have to await some normalcy,” the source said, adding a similar fate faces the routine outpatient clinics which came to a halt about 15 months ago due to the pandemic. These include the cardiology, neurology, rheumatology, surgical and medical clinics catering to about 2,000 patients a day. The source was happy that the fear psychosis that gripped the healthcare staff at the beginning of the pandemic, which in some instances led to them not attending to patients, has had a dramatic turnaround. “In Personal Protective Equipment (PPE), the doctors, both senior and junior, and the nurses are doing ward rounds and are by the patients’ bedside when necessary,” the source added. | |