Covid-19: Health ponders setting up transitional centres in low demand private infrastructure – O País

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Covid-19: Health ponders setting up transitional centres in low demand private infrastructure – O País

2:24 CAT | 02 Oct 2020

Photo: O País

The Ministry of Health is studying ways to create transitional in-patient centres for critically ill patients as a way of addressing the lack of space for new patients in Maputo city hospital units.

Speaking at a press conference 24 hours after President Nyusi announced the exhaustion of beds and ventilators in health facilities in the country’s capital, the director of investigation at the National Health Institute, Sérgio Chicumbe, said that the strategy aimed to prevent health complications caused by the lack of adequate care.

“The country entered this pandemic situation with no structural capacity to face the coronavirus, a scenario which ended up getting worse. As a way of bridging this situation, we may resort to private [health] infrastructure with low demand and manage them as Transitional Centres,” Chicumbe explained, while stressing that prevention remained the best strategy to fight the disease.

At a time when Mozambique’s borders – including that with South Africa – have already reopened, and one of the requirements for leaving the country is a negative Covid-19 test, the authorities made it known that they will only cover the costs of testing for critically ill patients who need treatment abroad.

“The public sector tests carefully and is focused on urgent cases, such as patients who need intensive care. Those individuals who want to travel for personal reasons, or for business matters, may take the tests in private health facilities at their own expense,” Chicumbe explained.

But the increase in the number of those infected in the last few days, especially in Maputo city and province, is putting pressure on testing capacity, and the Ministry of Health is considering increasing its stock.

“At the beginning of the pandemic, our stock consisted of 80,000 test units. These tests were not used as often in the first few months, but due to the increase in the number of cases, we currently test around 1,000 people per day,” Chicumbe noted.

On the day that face-to-face Grade 12 classes resumed, the Ministry of Health called on parents and guardians to ensure that all students strictly observe pandemic prevention measures.

Mozambique had, by Thursday, registered 3,249 active coronavirus cases and 62 Covid-related deaths.

Source: O País