Deyalsingh: Reduce gatherings to save lives

Health Minister Terrence Deyalsingh is appealing to the population to work with his ministry and health-care workers by being vaccinated so they don’t have to be hospitalised if they become ill with covid19.

He made the statement at the Health Ministry's virtual covid19 update on Wednesday morning as he revealed that he had been asked to waive the public health regulations for a birthday party.

“We have been telling the population about children dying recently. I had a letter from a mother asking for me to waive the public health regulations to allow her to have a birthday party for her ten-year-old child.

"Now, if I say go ahead and have your birthday party – and as I’ve said before, I have no authority to grant exceptions to more than ten, so that’s not going to happen – but suppose I did it and 40 children become infected and present to the A&E (hospital's accident and emergency department) with these same doctors and nurses, who are we to put the responsibility on?

"And this is not the only letter I’ve gotten. People want to have weddings with 200 people, christenings, birthday parties, functions.

"People have to internalise what is happening around the world and tailor your expectations that right now these things cannot happen.”

He said between Monday and Tuesday,  people had taken up 5,720 booster shots at the 17 facilities where the vaccines were available.

“Reports are some people who are due for their boosters are citing Christmas, Christmas shopping, and Christmas activities as reasons not to get their boosters.

"I strongly advise against that. The opposite is true. Because it’s Christmas, because you are shopping, and because you are going into a crowded grocery, a crowded hardware, cosmetic store, market – because of Christmas, you probably need to get boosted.”

Deyalsingh reminded that 88.1 per cent, or 7,540 of 8,555 people in the parallel health-care system were unvaccinated. He said more people being vaccinated would reduce the number of people coming into the hospitals and thus reduce the burden being placed on health-care workers.

CMO Dr Roshan Parasram, in response to questions about people not being able to access the hotlines after having tested positive at private labs, said the hotline could only handle a certain capacity. He said the private lab should notify the office of the CMO if a positive result was detected, as stated in the public health regulations.

“Once we get a positive result we send that to the county medical officers of health (CMOHs), and those people are then asked to contact the patients for two things: to issue your quarantine letters, if you haven’t had one before; and to give advice on symptomatology and when to seek health care. The lines available for emergency contact are 811, and we ask if you weren’t contacted and your symptoms become worse, that you still can go into a health facility and you can also call 811, which is the emergency service.

"Don’t wait for a call from a CMOH and then you need to go in in a critical condition.”

Parasram said the CMOHs were under tremendous pressure.

“When I went through the data, we have in excess of 13,000 people at home. We have eight CMOHs in Trinidad and one in Tobago, which means that according to our protocols, they have to do upwards of 13,000 calls every single day.

"They have been working for two years straight trying to do this service as a telemedicine service. The sheer numbers of it are difficult from their side to complete as a daily task. So we’re asking people to be cognisant of that, and if your symptoms get worse, to go into an emergency department or call 811.”

Responding to questions from the Pharmacy Board about a shortage of methylprednisolone, one of the preferred drugs used to treat covid19, Parasram said the World Health Organisation is recommending the use of dexamethasone.

“Both drugs prevent inflammation in the system, generally speaking. With methylprednisolone you have a slightly faster onset of action.

"We have put both drugs on our, what we call a red list, a watch list for covid19, in terms of what we keep a very close on as it relates to supply management. You find that everything related to covid19 since last year has undergone some previous period where there’s global shortages and hence we have a very close eye on it. We’re working with the suppliers, with NIPDEC, to make sure we can get it in as soon as we can.

"The latest update with methylprednisolone is that it’s in TT, on the ports, so it should be back in the system very soon, and we have both the oral and IV preparation of dexamethasone available.”