Despite having a community spread of COVID-19 Delta cases, the chief executive officer of the Southwest Regional Health Authority Dr Brian Armour says his team is well equipped to deal with any surge of the Delta virus.
Speaking at a public board meeting on Thursday afternoon, Dr Armour said more than half of the nurses in COVID facilities have taken the vaccines.
“We have seen a steady improvement in the last few months,” he added.
Dr Armour said even migrants have been receiving medical care at the SWRHA’s health institutions noting that up to September 2021, there were just over 35,000 patients with respiratory illnesses presenting at the hospitals, not linked to COVID-19.
“The issue of Venezuelan migrants or any migrant is an issue that falls under our non-national policy. Very few Venezuelan mothers are presenting and they are all receiving treatment,” Dr Armour said.
Despite the unprecedented pandemic year, Dr Armour said staff attended to over 230,000 patient visits to the emergency departments.
“There were over 150,000 out-patient visits and over 430,000 patient visits in primary care. We treated over 55,000 patients admitted to our wards and performed over 12,000 surgeries at our hospitals,” he added.
More than 4,500 babies were delivered.
“We have seen a continuous reduction in babies with low birth weights. This highlights the continuum of care between the ante-natal services provided in Primary Care up to delivery at Secondary care,” he added.
Immunization has also been on the rise.
“We have continued to meet international standards with some of the highest rates of immunization uptakes across the globe, with 99 per cent in County Victoria, 96 per cent in County St Patrick and 99 per cent in County Caroni (South),” he added.
Free vaccinations are provided to all children to prevent morbidity and mortality from vaccine-preventable diseases, he added.
Asked about the shortage of drugs, Dr Armour said the Authority has
totally or partially dispensed 93 per cent of all prescriptions.
“We have conducted and processed over 2.4 million tests, which represents a 60 per cent increase over the previous year. We have processed over 200,000 Radiological images,” he added.
He noted that the SWRHA procured, installed and commissioned equipment for the Operating Theatre, Intensive Care Unit, Hbridge link Unit, Urology and Obstetrics departments.
He noted that SWRHA recorded 1367 patients’ positive for COVID 19 as of September 30.
“The Medical Extension One (MedX1) ward was re-purposed for use as the designated area for treatment and care of suspected cases of COVID 19. Subsequently, the Augustus Long Hospital, a 65-bed facility, inclusive of an Intensive Care Unit, a High Dependency Unit and general ward capacity to treat suspected cases of COVID is being used as the National contingency to the Couva Hospital,” he added.
He noted that the SWRHA also refurbished the laboratory to receive the testing platform technology for the COVID machine.
