Guwahati: With the number of coronavirus cases in Assam continuing to tick upwards leading to a dearth of hospital beds in healthcare facilities, the number of home quarantine patients in the state has been rising exponentially. This has led to concern among the health professionals in the state, who believe that home isolation could potentially have catastrophic ramifications for some of the more serious COVID patients.
Recently, the National Health Mission (NHM), Assam, tasked with keeping the COVID-19 disease at bay, has released a set of dos and dont's for COVID-19 patients who are mulling home quarantine as an option, instead of going through with the hassle of trying to arrange hospital beds.
Issuing a warning to the public at large via an advertisement, the NHM Assam says that "home isolation is actually meant for asymptomatic COVID-19 patients or for people with mild symptoms." The NHM has further pointed out that a COVID-19 patient should opt for home isolation only after he/she has taken proper medical advice.
"While in home isolation, please strictly monitor your body temperature and oxygen saturation frequently," the NHM added in its guidelines.
In case a patient's oxygen saturation level falls below 95%, or if he/she develops some symptoms, they are advised to report to the hospital.
Some of the more dangerous symptoms associated with COVID are as follows:
Dry cough and fever
Trouble breathing or shortness of breath
Diarrhea
Persistent pain or pressure in the chest region
Loss of speech and movement
Lips or face turning blue
Mental confusion and inability to awaken from sleep
The NHM has further warned that the "late reporting of alarming symptoms by home isolation patients may lead to serious complications and may cause death."
The NHM has also issued a set of guidelines to be followed by the COVID-19 patients who opt for home isolation.
These patients, the NHM says, must stay in a separate well-ventilated room and wear triple-layer masks at all times. The patients should also stay away from other people -- especially old people and people with co-morbidities.
Further, they have been advised to monitor their own health, and report to health experts immediately if any of the dangerous symptoms associated with the respiratory disease develop.
The care givers of the patients must also take several precautions to minimize the risk of a transmission. For instance, they should wear triple-layer masks, wash hands frequently, and avoid direct contact with the body fluids of the patient.
These guidelines have been issued days after Assam's health Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma proclaimed that home isolation of COVID-19 positive patients could be a cause behind the increase in virus-related deaths across the state.
"People in home isolation contact the medical department only when the situation turns critical and that has led to deaths in many of the cases," Sarma recently said. "There have been instances where critical patients have died within one to one and a half hours of being brought to the hospital. Home isolation is one of the main reasons for the increased death rate of COVID-19 patients in Assam."