Staff to live with covid19 patients at Grande step-down facility

LAUREL V WILLIAMS

Staff at the Sangre Grande covid19 step-down facility have agreed to live on-site with patients for the duration of their stay.

Dr Alana Best, in a virtual press conference on Tuesday, said at present there are nurses, a cleaner and a groundsman.

Best is the county medical officer of health based at Sangre Grande.

"Patients have access to outdoors, but within limits, as there are certain areas dedicated for staff only," she said, adding that the patients are not permitted to leave the compound."

Patients, she said, are monitored twice daily meaning they have their pulses, blood pressure and oxygen level checked. Doctors are on standby and patients are given three balanced meals per day. They also have access to fruit and water, Best said.

"We have made one-on-one telephone counselling available to the step-down facility. Family members are not allowed to visit, but they are allowed to drop off care packages at designated areas."

She recalled that the Eastern Regional Health Authority (ERHA) had commissioned two sites, one at Balandra (the quarantine site) and later at Sangre Grande (the convalescence site).

Best said: "In other countries, we have seen...non-traditional setting transformed into care sites like gymnasium, stadiums and hotels.

"Our approach has been to look for alternative care sites that can serve as step-down facilities that would allow us to shield the general population from directly interfacing with covid-positive patients and so helps us to slow this virus."

The step-down facilities, Best said, accomplish two important goals.

"In addition to protecting the general population, the step-down facilities allow us to continue to provide supportive care for covid-positive patients during their recovery phase of this disease. A step-down facility is not a hospital."

Of the 33 patients accepted at the Sangre Grande facility on Saturday, 28 patients remained there up to Tuesday morning.

Best thanked health care workers, drivers, labourers, pharmacists, doctors, nurses, public health inspectors, cleaners, social workers, who have been working tirelessly to get the facilities up and running.

She also thanked the Defence Force for its ongoing support in securingthe facility.

"We are fighting to keep every citizen safe. We have a duty of care to patients diagnosed with covid and to provide the services they required."