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By Mwangi Githahu 
4h ago
Cape Town – Public officials in the coal face of the fight against Covid-19 have sincerely pleaded with the public to help them in the battle against the deadly disease.
The healthcare system is under great pressure due to a sharp increase in admissions from Covid-19 and an increase in cases of non-Covid-19 related trauma, such as alcohol-related injuries and injuries from car accidents. traffic.
In an interview with Cape Argus on Sunday, the head of the Western Cape health department, Dr. Keith Cloete, said: “The health system and its workers, both in the public and private sectors, have never been under as much pressure as they are now.
“The situation is quite dire. In addition to being exhausted and traumatized, our healthcare workers are getting infected and as such there are fewer of them working.
“We call on the public to do everything possible to help, particularly during the next 14 days. They can do this by avoiding public gatherings, keeping their personal bubbles safe, and adhering to regulations on physical distancing.
“Continued alcohol abuse is putting everyone at risk, as it inevitably leads to trauma from violence and accidents.
“People will always have minor ailments, but if yours is minor, we ask you not to come to hospitals, especially to our emergency centers, since you will only be occupying space and making the situation worse by competing with seriously ill patients for service “.
Dr. Laurica Bailey, New Somerset Hospital Emergency Medicine Medical Officer, said: “Everybody keeps saying that we are the front line. They were not. We are practically the last line of defense.
“There is community transmission established again in the Western Cape and from the experience of the first wave, we have seen that once this is the case, we also experience more of our healthcare workers becoming infected.
“Infections in healthcare workers have far-reaching implications, as sick personnel must be isolated. Fewer staff can report to work, fewer staff are available to care for the sick, and therefore fewer staff are available to save lives.
“To put this in perspective, on December 22 there were 761 healthcare workers in 94 institutions infected with Covid-19. Since the start of the pandemic, 7,215 staff members were forced to take Covid-19-related leave, which is equivalent to 36,287 days. Days in which our staff could not provide health services ”.
False Bay Hospital emergency center supervisor Dr. Ricardo Titus said: “Covid-19 is a time when people are desperate.
“I treated a young man with Covid-19 whose father entered. I put my hand on his chest and his father put his hands on mine. I felt the pain of all the parents who lost their children, of all the parents who could lose their children, of all the children that were lost to their parents. “
Professor Jackie Hoare from the UCT department of psychiatry said: “They teach us to deliver bad news. But the way we experience death at that moment (in the first wave), and we are experiencing it now, is at a rate that none of us were prepared for.
“We are tired and we need your (public) help. We cannot do this alone. It is real. It is happening again. Please help us.”
Cape argus
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