New procedure for Covid-19 patients with mild or no symptoms

An order of the Health Minister changes procedures as regards coronavirus patients with mild or no simptoms.

Roxana Vasile, 29.10.2020, 13:50

Severely underfinanced for years, the Romanian healthcare system is one of the worst performing in Europe, and its many problems surface mostly in crisis situations, such as the coronavirus pandemic. Thus, at present, the number of available hospital beds for the people infected with Covid-19 is insufficient, given the increasing number of patients.

Previously ordering the hospitalisation of all people infected, including the ones with mild or no symptoms, authorities have now decided that these two categories should be treated at home, in order to ease the pressure put on hospitals. In keeping with a new order of the Health Minister, people who test positive to the virus must notify their general practitioner. The latter must monitor their health and announce the Public Health Department. People with mild or no symptoms can isolate themselves at home or at an address supplied to the authorities. People with no symptoms but with underlying health conditions, at their request and upon the reccomendation of the general practitioner, will be taken to Covid hospitals for medical tests and then, with their consent, comitted to Covid phase I or phase II hospitals that have intensive care units or to support hospitals in case the Covid hospitals do not have ICUs.

However, it is also possible not to have enough beds in ICUs for patients in critical condition or enough medical staff. That is why, the Government has adopted a draft emergency order allowing the direct hiring, at the Gerota Hospital in Bucharest, of 200 physicians who completed their intership and are specialised in intensive care, emergency, infectious disease, epidemiology and radiology. For six months, the 200 physicians can be transffered, by order of the chief of the Department for Emergencies, to any medical unit in need of staff. When the period for which they were hired expires, these physicians can be hired for an indefinite period in the medical units that have vacancies.

(Translated by Elena Enache)