Doctors under the Uganda Medical Association (UMA) want the admission of COVID-19 patients with mild symptoms stopped.
Speaking to reporters in Kampala on Friday, the UMA President Dr Richard Idro said only COVID-19 patients with moderate and severe symptoms should be admitted in hospitals as this will reduce on the patient burden on doctors.
“We should stop admitting every Coronavirus positive person to COVID-19 treatment units but admit only persons with moderate or severe symptoms. We do not have resources and we cannot afford it. As soon as the admitted patients improve, discharge them to continue care from home,” Idro said.
This he said will reduce the patient burden at the treatment unit freeing the limited resources and personnel to care for those that truly need it.
“The infected people who do not have symptoms or only have mild symptoms and have rooms in their homes, should self-isolate and be cared for at home,” Idro added.
The doctors suggested that communities should help identify places to isolate those who cannot be isolated in their homes.
Furthermore, the doctors called for the creation of mobile COVID-19 treatment and rapid response teams with ambulances, upgrading of COVID-19 evacuation ambulances to the level of Intensive Care Unit (ICU) to respond to calls from hospitals and COVID-19 positive patients that have been getting care from their homes and require evacuation to COVID-19 treatment units or require check up from the unit.
They also called for recruitment of more health workers, stocking up of PPEs, urgent training of all health workers in private health facilities in occupational health and safety to prevent further spread of COVID-19 and increase turnaround time for the results laboratory tests to come back under 6 hours.
