Covid-19: Increase in patient load at HTAR Klang still manageable, says director

KLANG: The increase in Covid-19 admissions at the Hospital Tengku Ampuan Rahimah (HTAR) in Klang is still manageable and is not serious, says its director Dr Zulkarnain Mohd Rawi.

Dr Zulkarnain said as of Monday (April 24), there were 14 Covid-19 admissions with the majority of the patients falling under category four.

There is one patient under category one, two under category two, three under category three, seven under category four and one under category five admitted at the HTAR Covid-19 ward to date.

“All the patients admitted have various comorbidities and are above the age of 40,’’ said Dr Zulkarnain when contacted.

This comes after the Health Ministry said recently that there was an 87.5% increase in Covid-19 cases up to April 8, with admissions to hospital seeing an increase of 30.5%.

On Covid-19 cases, Dr Zulkarnain said that those who do not have any comorbidities and are under the age of 40 are able to manage by themselves as the infection is not as severe as it used to be.

“As they have all been vaccinated, they are able to recover fast but it’s the people with comorbidities that need medical intervention at hospitals,’’ said Dr Zulkarnain.

Those with comorbidities are those who have serious cardiovascular diseases or other forms of illnesses.

“My advice to people in this category would be for the to be extra cautious when venturing out as well as to take the necessary precautions,’’ said Dr Zulkarnain.

Meanwhile, Association of Private Hospitals Malaysia president Datuk Dr Kuljit Singh said there is also an increase in Covid-19 patients coming to private medical establishments.

He added most of the patients coming to private hospitals only had mild symptoms and some were detected to have the virus only when tested.

Dr Kuljit said that his organisation’s main worry was people not using the MySejahtera app to notify the authorities when they are infected with Covid-19.

“Many suffer from Covid-19 symptoms but believe that it’s not Covid-19 because they feel that it (Covid-19) has gone away,’’ said Dr Kuljit.

He added there were also people who had their own concept of living with Covid-19 and did not mask-up, test for infection, practice stringent sanitation or observe appropriate social distancing.

“All governments in the world have not mandated any of the above with the expectation that the public will take necessary precaution from what we have learnt, but unfortunately not all are doing the right thing,’’ said Dr Kuljit.