PRIVATE clinics are offering house calls to make up for fewer outpatients during the Covid-19 outbreak.

The elderly prefer the doctor to see call because they do wish to venture out of their homes, said the patients.

Semenyih-based Dr Md Azhari Md Zhahir said he began making house calls and delivering medicines to patients after the first movement control order (MCO) in March last year.

His clinic saw a sharp drop in the number of patients while the number of requests for online consultations and house calls increased. 

“People still do come to the clinic, but fewer than before the pandemic. I’ve surveyed several nearby clinics and other doctors are also facing a similar situation,” he told The Malaysian Insight.

House calls have enabled him to keep his private practice going. He receives two to three requests for house visits in a day and there are times he has to work at night.

The most common treatments he is called to make are wound dressing, vaccination, nasogastric tube insertion, and catheterisation.

There is also growing demand for Covid-19 screening and assessment, especially from patients who are elderly and living alone, as well as those undergoing home quarantine.

Azhari’s clinic is registered with the Health Ministry as a Covid-19 assessment centre (CAC), which monitors cases with mild symptoms that do not need hospitalisation. It also contacts patients in home quarantine on the phone daily to check on their health status.

“We have to ensure that patients are still in the first and second stages of the Covid-19 infection. If they worsen to the third stage, they will be immediately referred to the hospital,” he said.

The CAC oversees about a hundred patients each day, and at least one or two are sent to the hospital a day.

However, thanks to a higher vaccination rate, Azhari said the number of Covid-19 patients in advanced stages of infection are dropping, and fewer patients are experiencing sudden deterioration.

In Johor, Dr Bunny Tan began making house calls in July last year.

He began by helping a friend, who runs an elderly care home, with physical examinations so that the residents need not go out during the epidemic.

In the last few months, Covid-19 screening services have seen greater demand, Tan said.

“Many elderly have difficulty leaving their homes, and young people are afraid to take their aged relatives to the doctor.”

Tan advises patients in home quarantine to check themselves for breathing difficulties, cough, vomiting, diarrhoea, dehydration, and low blood oxygen.

When these symptoms appear and remain, the patient needs to be hospitalised, he said.

Tan added that although Health Ministry guidelines state that an asymptomatic patient in home quarantine can be released after 10 days, he prefers to tell his patients to first take another RT-PCR test to check their viral load.

“If the result shows that there is still a high virus load,  patients should continue to quarantine and avoid contact with their family members.”

If the test shows a cycle threshold (CT) value of higher than 30, it means it is safe to end the quarantine, Tan added. A low CT value indicates a high viral load. – September 3, 2021.