The Goan Network
PANAJI
The Health Minister on Monday announced that the department aims todistribute home isolation kits to 5,000 patients in a week's time.
The announcement was made after a virtual meeting of all the healthofficers from urban health centres and primary health centres in the presenceof Health Secretary Amit Satija, Director DHS Dr Jose D'Sa, Dean of Goa MedicalCollege and Hospital Dr S M Bandekar, Under Secretary Trupti Manerkar and SwatiDalvi, Joint Secretary (Health) Ajit Pauskar, FDA Director Jyoti Sardessai,State Epidemiologist Dr Utkarsh Betodkar and Dr Kedar Raikar.
During the meeting, the department finalised the SOPs and protocols forthe distribution of home isolation kits and shared these with the healthofficers for seamless distribution and effective use.
As per the protocols, each kit will be numbered to monitor the stock andkit distribution. Health officers will issue prescriptions to patients receivingthe kit for Doxycycline and Ivermectin tablets. Daily records of home isolationpatients will be signed by respective health officers at PHCs. SOPs will bedrawn for taking CT scans and X-ray of home isolation patients.
For critical, elderly or co-morbid patients, CT scan and X-ray will becarried out in advance.
In addition to this, patients above 50 years of age who are under homeisolation will be monitored thrice a day by ANMs and MPHWs and specialattention will be given to them by senior doctors.
Meanwhile, it was disclosed that a few Covid Care centres will remainactive to reduce the burden on GMC. Similarly, the South Goa District Hospitalswill have ICU and ITUs to share the load.
The health minister also declared that digitisation of patients' vitaldata is being taken up in an extensive way so that any gradual or sudden fallcan be red alerted and referred to the health officer immediately for quickmedical action.
A nodal officer will now be designated for managing home isolation withtwo doctors under him respectively for North Goan and South Goa to interpretand dissect information from the database, which will then be reported back tothe nodal officer.
The department has also decided to train 10 nurses to analyse patientrecords and report the same to the state epidemiologist.
