BMC to hire specialists to advise patients in home isolation
BHUBANESWAR: The Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation (BMC) has decided to hire specialist doctors (private) to provide consultancy to the Covid patients in home isolation.
The moves came after BMC made an assessment of the proficiency of the teams of Ayush doctors monitoring home isolation patients. It felt that Ayush doctors couldn’t handle cases, which required special attention. The specialists will include paediatricians, pulmonologists, cardiologists and medicine specialists.
Sources in the BMC said many patients still had doubts about the doses and types of medicines to be given to certain vulnerable sections of people, including children. “If a home has infected children and someone speaks to the Ayush doctors regarding what dosage of medicine a child should take, the latter are not able to advise them. So, we thought, a paediatric specialist can better advice in such a situation,” said BMC commissioner Prem Chandra Chaudhury.
Currently, close to 80 per cent of the active cases are being treated at home. So, the healthcare attention has increased in that proportion. Given the success rate of home isolation cases with only 1.5 per cent of them needing hospitalization, the BMC decided to have a holistic approach towards the need of those being treated at home.