Allowing low-risk patients to be home quarantined will ease hospital congestion, says Health DG

PUTRAJAYA: The Health Ministry's decision to allow low-risk Covid-19 patients to be quarantined at home will help ease the congestion in hospitals, says Tan Sri Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah (pic).

The Health director-general said the ministry’s hospitals nationwide have been overwhelmed with cases, including the increasing number of patients requiring critical care.

“Every single day we are seeing more and more people being admitted at our hospitals or PKRCs (Covid-19 Quarantine and Low-Risk Treatment Centres).

“We are not able to accommodate more patients at our centres so what we have decided to do is to consider isolating patients who are low-risk at their homes.

“However, this is subject to fulfilling certain requirements. The ministry is currently perfecting the SOPs (standard operating procedures) on home quarantine, ” said Dr Noor Hisham at the ministry’s Covid-19 press conference here Tuesday (Jan 19).

Low-risk Covid-19 patients are classified as category one and category two, in which they display little to no symptoms and are not sufferers of chronic diseases.

Dr Noor Hisham said the priority is to admit those who are critical and classified as category three, four and five into hospitals.

“Right now, about 20% of the cases are category three to five. If in a day there are 3,000 cases, then 20% is 600 cases, ” said Dr Noor Hisham.

For those under Covid-19 home care, Dr Noor Hisham said the patient must always be isolated from their family members or housemates, and avoid having visitors.

However, patients whose homes are not suitable for isolation purposes will still be admitted to PKRCs.