KUALA LUMPUR, Aug 15 — “The ED (Emergency Department) used to be a sea of body bags and patient beds, with canvas sheets lining the floor – you could see them at every nook and corner. But now you can see the floor.”
This was the vivid picture painted by Dr Hana Hadzrami, an anaesthesiologist at the Kuala Lumpur Hospital, in a Facebook post today. It is grim, but it also spoke of hope.
“The number of referrals from the ED to the ICU (Intensive Care Unit) for critically ill Covid-19 patients has also decreased. Previously, the waiting list would fill up the board at the ICU, with pages and pages posted up due to the lack of space on the board. Now, even the board has cleared up a bit,” she wrote in the Malay-language post which garnered nearly 2,000 comments and 14,000 shares at the time of writing.
The number of elderly Covid-19 patients have also gone down since July, as have the number of locals admitted for the illness since last week. In fact, she said, the majority of patients who came in to be treated for Covid-19 at the hospital since last week were foreigners.
The number of patients who needed to be admitted to the ICU and fatalities due to Covid-19 have also decreased, she wrote.
“We in the Klang Valley are starting to see a glimmer of light at the end of this dark tunnel. It’s faint, but it’s filled with hope,” said Dr Hana, who believes that the positive development was due to the increased vaccination rate.
The number of Covid-19 patients in the mild category were still many, but they only required to be admitted for monitoring and treatment.
A member of Medical MythBuster Malaysia, Dr Hana said there were still Covid-19 patients admitted into the ICU from among Malaysian citizens, but majority comprised those who refused vaccination.
“The vaccinated ones recovered very quickly compared to those unvaccinated,” she said.
Dr Hana said that in the hospital, four vaccinated patients who needed ventilator support were on it for only three to four days before recovering, while patients who had yet to be vaccinated needed respiratory support for two to three weeks.
“The vaccinated ones recovered with clear chest X-rays compared to those who have yet to be vaccinated, whose lungs were completely damaged. This is not counting those who have died,” she said.
However, she explained, the number of Covid-19 patients at the hospital’s ICU were still many as they included patients admitted from last month. The number of those brought in dead were also still high.
In light of the situation, she called on the public to continue their fight against Covid-19 by getting themselves vaccinated.
“I cannot wait till we become like Sarawak , where the number of critically ill Covid-19 patients are only three. This is due to their broad and rapid vaccination coverage,” she said.
— Bernama
