Patients that are currently receiving treatment for COVID-19 are spending an average of 20-days in hospitals, according to physicians. Previously, patients would spend at least 15-days in a hospital to heal from moderate to severe cases of the disease.
But according to clinicians, most people who are infected and hospitalized lately have severe forms of the disease that require longer hospital stays. This issue may have been raised due to the shortage of beds in the hospitals and people waiting for their turn to get admitted.
The longer a patient with Covid-19 waits, they might be prone to other diseases. In the future, this problem can be avoided if hospitals around the world start making use of a physician answering service or other such medical answering services. Going that route can help the patients to communicate through calls and book appointments earlier.
In case the hospital is fully occupied, they can look for other hospitals for treatment. This can help people get immediate treatment rather than waiting for their turn and worsening their condition at the same time. 40-year-old Immaculate Kyeyune, a COVID-19 patient who was discharged from the hospital three weeks ago says she spent 25 days at the hospital and spent most of her time there on oxygen support.
“When I went I was suffering from shortness of breath. I was told I need support breathing and I was put on oxygen in the High Dependency Unit. But then I worsened and was taken to the ICU where I was told I spent 10 days. After that I was taken back to the HDU for around six days before I was discharged,” she narrates.
Dr Rosemary Byanyiima, the Deputy Executive Director at Mulago National Referral Hospital says the patients are staying longer because they have severe forms of the disease that require longer stays. She says that after patients are weaned off oxygen, some of them need to be observed for a few days to make sure that they can breathe on their own.
It is expected that the recovered patients would practice breathing exercises or participate in breathwork training in order to restore their lungs’ health and live life in the same way they did before.
Dr Moses Muwanga, the director of Entebbe Regional Referral Hospital says that the severity of the disease now determines how long a patient is hospitalised.
“It is hard to determine how long a patient will be admitted. Before it would take between 14 to 18 days, but some of the current patients have spent more than a month at the hospital,” Muwanga says. This is due to the fact that each patient is unique, as are their problems. As a result, Covid affects patients differently. That’s why health care organizations are increasingly attempting to improve quality by refocusing organizational policy and care delivery on the patient. This patient-centered approach tends to be backed up by evidence of clinical outcomes and patient experiences. However, many hospitals are still attempting to figure out What patient centered care is. Patient-centered care, in a nutshell, is the practice of caring for patients (and their families) in ways that are meaningful and valuable to the individual patient.
Dr Misaki Wayengera, the chair of the COVID-19 ministerial scientific task force says that the prolonged stay in hospitals is dependent on the variant causing the disease. Wayengera adds that the long hospital stays mean that the current hospital bed capacity will be insufficient to handle the increase in patients.
With the increasing number of reported cases, more than a quarter of the people being hospitalized, doctors say, the countries might soon run out of beds.
During continuing situations, doctors may advise patients with non-serious conditions to quarantine at home. The burden on hospitals will be reduced as a result of this measure. During quarantine, patients can maintain hygienic and germ-free conditions by regularly cleaning their floors (probably by hiring a Wood Floor Cleaning service), sanitizing their buildings, and dusting, which prevents the virus variants from spreading rapidly.
“One thing we have seen with the variants is that severely sick patients require more care. Many of them need oxygen and end up in the ICU, something that was not seen in the first wave when we were dealing with the original Wuhan virus,” Wayengera said.
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