Ministry: Covid19 plus hurricane season could challenge health care

WITH the covid19 pandemic set to stretch into the middle and end of this year, health ministry chief technical co-ordinator for disaster preparedness Patti-Ann Williams says TT's health care system – already coping with the pandemic – is set to face several further potential challenges with the hurricane season fast approaching.

Speaking at the ministry's daily covid19 virtual press briefing on Monday, she said there is a forecast of eight hurricanes this rainy season with four possibly being Category Three or higher. An active hurricane season, she said, will present major challenges to the health care system already grappling with the pandemic.

Williams said four major challenges facing the health care system have been identified in the event of a very active rainy season when the threat of natural disasters increase.

One challenge is the potential for a limited availability of response personnel to react to a specific disaster; another is the potential for difficulty in separating the elderly and immuno-compromised from others during an evacuation; the third issue is the possibility of limity supplies of personnel protective equipment for first responders and the fourth issue deals with health care capacity, including bed capacity.

Williams said all health and non-health stakeholders would have to collaborate in order to manage such an event. She said measures which need to be put in place would be resource allocation and re-allocation; training and retraining; facility preparation; evacuation and shelter management; and public education and risk communication.

She said county medical officers were working within their areas of operation to put measures in place to deal with these issues.

She said some of the measures put into place to manage covid19, including regular updates to the public, if continued, could assist in helping to manage the upcoming hurricane season.

The TT Met Service in a statement Monday predicted an above-normal tropical cyclone activity in the Area of Interest (AoI) for TT during the 2020 hurricane season. The most likely number of named tropical storms (winds of at least 34 knots/39 mph) to occur in the AoI during the June to November period is six, with an 85 per cent chance that the number will be in the range of four to eight named storms. The most likely number of hurricanes (winds of at least 64 knots/74 mph) predicted to occur in the AoI during the June to November period is two, with an 85 per cent chance that the number will be in the range of one to three.

Minister of Health Terrence Deyalsingh at the media conference said step-down facilities could be used for shelters in the event of a major natural disaster. Answering questions from reporters, Deyalsingh said step-down facilities like the Home of Football in Couva are already being considered for use if a natural disaster occurs while the country is still dealing with covid19.

“Many of the facilities we are currently using as convalescence facilities have already been converted and used for shelters. The physical distancing that would be necessary would be applicable to these facilities,” Deyalsingh said.

There are facilities in Debe, Tacarigua, Sangre Grande and Balandra.

Chief Medical Officer Dr Roshan Parasram said that physical distancing would be difficult at these shelters but thermal scanners can be put in place and patients' histories taken. He added there would be more people wearing masks and sanitisation of surfaces.

He said with the rainy season in about a month or so the country has to look at diseases that would have played a major role in TT and the region over many years.

"Though we have covid19 at the fore of our mind these diseases will again see a resurgence in diseases such as dengue fever and leptospirosis to name a few."

- with additional reporting by Julien Neaves and Ryan Hamilton-Davis