HEOC: Patients may need to be triaged if cases continue to rise

Health Emergency Operations Center (HEOC) officials said on Sunday that health officials may need to treat coronavirus patients on priority basis if cases increase to an unmanageable level.

 Voicing concern over the surge in coronavirus cases, HEOC spokesperson and epidemiologist Dr. Nazla Rafeeq said 62 percent of hospital beds designated for coronavirus patients in the greater Male’ region are now occupied.

Dr. Ali Latheef, a leading physician and member of the Technical Advisory Group (TAG) for national coronavirus efforts, said that health officials may need to triage patients to prioritize who will be hospitalized or who will receive ventilator treatment if cases increase too much, and there is a severe shortage in available hospital beds.

 “If cases increase in Male’ like this, we may need to triage patients. Triaging means patients means deciding who will be hospitalized, based on probability of survival. We haven’t had to triage up to this point. However, if cases continue to rise and if there is a shortage of hospital beds, then we will need to triage,” he said.

“Male’ is a small community, and we know one another. Therefore, if we were to decide who will be selected for hospitalization or for treatment on a ventilator, it may become very hard. It may become very tragic.”

Dr. Latheef said current rate of infection in Maldives is alarmingly high, given the small size of the population.

 “We identified our first case on March 7. After that, it took 56 days for 500 positive cases. The next 500 positive cases took just 13 days. And what is our situation today? It’s taking only three to four days for an additional 500 cases. This rate is extremely high,” he said.

Dr. Latheef also voiced concern regarding the shortage of doctors and nurses. He said that healthcare workers are extremely overworked, and that some have gotten infected themselves.

“We are facing massive challenges due to the shortage of doctors and nurses even now. We aren’t able to provide the care we want,” he said.

Maldives has 6,779 confirmed coronavirus cases, including 119 new cases recorded on Sunday. 4,222 patients have since recovered, while 26 have died from complications.

994 cases have been recorded over the last one-week period alone.

The country currently has 2,531 active cases. 162 coronavirus patients are hospitalized.