THE government’s failure to provide support for Covid patients is causing undue suffering

“I never imagined it would come to this. We are at a time when we have to choose which Covid patients will get the ICU beds and which won’t because resources are limited. Each ICU bed needs one-on-one care. Selection is based on who has a better chance of survival.” 

This was shared to me by my family member who is a doctor in a Covid ICU. With black rings under her eyes and a tired face, she shared the predicament the medical personnel managing the crisis were in. 

As she cannot speak out as a civil servant, I have decided to share the story. 

“There are patients who have been discharged, coming back again after two months only to die. For every bed vacated, five patients are waiting. It just seems never ending.” 

Furthermore, there is another gaping hole where there is no SOP for patients who survived and have been discharged to their homes. No one checks on them on how they carry on at home. 

Going beyond their main duties, the medical personnel on their own initiative take charge to check on the wellbeing of their discharged patients.  And this is where some patients have asked for help for food because many times, they found that the entire household is Covid 19 positive and needed to be quarantined. That leaves no one to take care of anyone. And no work, hence no food at home. 

She gave an example. An elderly patient was about to be discharged from the hospital, but her two siblings she lived with were also Covid 19 positive and in the hospital. So this elderly lady was going back to an empty home. When the medical personnel called to check on her, they found she had also come home to an empty larder, with no money and no one to take care of her. They scrambled to call friends, NGOs and Good Samaritans to send food to her. The government has made no arrangements for such a situation,  presumably it expects the patient’s relatives to help out but people are not allowed to travel inter-district and interstate to visit their relatives.

Yesterday, being shorthanded and unable to help a family in desperate need, our family doctor turned to me for help. It was a bad situation: the elderly mother was in the ICU and her daughter and son-in-law were also Covid 19 positive and quarantined at home. The  daughter was isolated  in the living room so she could cook and run the household while her husband and the children stayed in a room. The daughter makes kuih to supplement the family income, the husband drives a Grab. But while in quarantine, they both do not have an income. To make matters worse, he does not own the car he drives for work and has to pay rent for it.

So they gave me the necessary details of the family in dire straits and I asked a good friend who has contact with people from United Sikh and Kembara Kitchen. My friend who is an activist sprang into action. Within a day, United Sikh sent groceries and nappies to the family, the youngest child being a toddler. I conveyed the needs of the family to the donors. Word got around and a few people, including a Buddhist monk, donated cash to the family. United Sikh members even managed to get an Oximeter to lend to the family to check their oxygen level daily in case they need oxygen bags. 

The wonderful thing about our multiethnic country is that people from all religious groups and ethnicities come together to help. They help without needing to know the race or religion of the family or the kind doctor who took the trouble to find aid for the family members while taking care of the elderly mother in the ICU.

Their help is needed because the government has no plans for this crucial part of Covid 19 aftercare due to oversight or simply a lack of capacity. 

This is one family. How many families who are affected by Covid, where one or two family members are in the hospital, and the rest have to be quarantined are finding themselves with no money and no food at home? Can there be an SOP for this neglected area? A unit that is in charge of this? Perhaps the government can empower NGOs to take care of this aspect, give them a budget, rather than the organisations having to raise funds from the public apart from getting their own volunteers to buy and then distribute the needed items to the families. – May 27, 2021.

* Abdul Rahman Abdullah reads The Malauysian Insight.

* This is the opinion of the writer or publication and does not necessarily represent the views of The Malaysian Insight. Article may be edited for brevity and clarity.