The Ministry of Health and Medical Services is remodelling its health service provision to adapt to a more COVID-safe environment to cater for the admission of non-COVID patients as well as allow patients to access specialist services.
At the CWM Hospital in Suva where there has been an increase in the proportion of non-COVID admissions, protocols are being drawn up that would allow for services to normalise to be able to cater for COVID and non-COVID patients.
“This would include resuming the outpatients and non-emergency inpatient services in a more COVID safe manner,” Permanent Secretary Health Dr James Fong said.
“The Heads of Departments, together with Clinical Governance and Infection Control Teams are working on protocols to be used for patients to access Specialist Services. This would include risk assessing patients and aligning our Infection Prevention and Control measures to protect staff and patients.”
The Special outpatient patient clinic (SOPD Clinic) had started a digital platform to provide telehealth and virtual consultation. Using this platform patients are called, a telephone consultation is done and prescribed medications are provided. Blood test forms have also been sent via Viber for patients to get blood tested at their nearest health centre.
“Some services such as blood donation services, bloodletting services and processing of SOPD prescriptions for refilling are being carried out in more open spaces. The objective is to open services throughout September with particular attention to our Ophthalmology and Dental Services. Many of the CWM doctors and nurses had been deployed to FEMAT and our transition is being coordinated with the return of the deployed staff.”
Across the country, active cases stand at 15,997, of which 4,522 are in the central division, in the West, 11,164 , with four in the northern division – all in Macuata – and 307 in the eastern division, all in Kadavu. There have been 47,795 cases during the outbreak that started in April 2021, and a total of 47,865 cases since the first case in March 2020.
