An Outpatient Department (OPD) will soon become operational at the NESCO jumbo centre for recovered patients who need attention for health complications. The patients will be attended by the specialists from the King Edward Memorial and RN Cooper hospitals. Along with this, the centre also has a plan to start post-Covid rehabilitation centre where the special focus will be paid on lung exercise and physiotherapy. For which, the centre is trying to procure the required equipment.
Dr. Neelam Andrade, dean of Nair Dental Hospital and in-charge of the jumbo centre said amid a decrease in covid patients at the centre they have decided to start the post-covid OPD and utilised the manpower on solving problems of recovered patients. “We have learnt most of the recovered covid patients develop other health-related problems following which we need to address those issues. For which we are planning to call specialists from KEM and Cooper Hospital to attend those patients on OPD basis,” she said.
Several recovered Covid-19 patients are developing long-term complications like breathlessness, fatigue, neurological disorder, lung fibrosis, heart diseases and numbness among others. This also leads to the additional economic burden on them as patients have to keep taking treatment for months.
Additionally, the jumbo centre which provides treatment to mild and moderate Covid-19 infected patients is also planning to start a post-Covid-19 rehabilitation centre which will include lung-related exercises and physiotherapy. Patients will be provided with treatment at free of cost.
Health activists have welcomed this move stating that such a centre will help in faster recovery and will be affordable to poor people. “Covid-19 is causing long-term health impacts on patients. But due to lack of rehabilitation programs, many poor people are opting out of it. Considering the growing cases of health complications, it is the need of the hour that the government focuses on post-Covid-19 health infrastructure,” said Dr. Abhijit More, health activist.
