Get them tested, Dr Corey Forde tells residents with elderly relatives

Acknowledging that there are about 25 critically ill patients at the isolation facilities, Infection Control specialist Dr Corey Forde is concerned that mainly elderly persons are getting severely ill and dying from the viral illness.

And although health professionals have been able to save the majority of the elderly folks who become ill with COVID, Dr Forde said it is painful to see them in that situation. He said in August, one person who was 80 went into isolation with COVID, in September there were 23, in October 42, and 18 thus far for November.

However, while giving the assurance during Saturday’s update that health professionals will continue to do all they possibly can to assist the elderly, younger persons need to help protect this section of the population through getting them vaccinated, tested if they show COVID-19 symptoms, and seek health care immediately if the results are positive.

The Head of the Isolation Facilities said: “Those numbers may not seem big to you, but to me they are significant. And why are they significant, because these are the people who are least likely to be able to help themselves. The younger persons go out, they may go to the supermarket, they may go to the gas station, they may go out with their friends, they are not supposed to be doing certain things and they go and do them and they bring it back home for old granny or old grandpa and it has an impact on their lives.

“For all of you who have your grandparents at home, for all of you who have your mothers and your fathers at home who are elderly who can’t help themselves, I am asking you especially to do two things for me. Just two things. One, if they get ill, get them tested. If they get tested, get them to the health-care system early. If you get them to us early, we can make the best of it. If you get them to us late, it is very difficult for us to save them and that is just the stark reality”.

Dr Forde explained that in Primary Isolation A there are 30 patients with 20 of them on non-invasive ventilation and four on invasive ventilation. He said the adjoining Primary B ventilation, formerly known as Secondary Isolation, has a total of 10 patients. He said in the new high dependency unit, there are 73 individuals, majority of whom are on oxygen and have severe COVID. (AH)