Health

Health Department Reports Covid-19 Hotline Overwhelmed

Published

2 years ago

March 4, 2022

Health Department Reports Covid-19 Hotline Overwhelmed

Health Department officials in Bangkok have advised people who contracted Omicron Covid-19 to seek treatment at hospitals in nearby provinces because the 1330 hotline is swamped with requests for treatment in the capital.

The Permanent Secretary for Public Health Department, Dr. Kiattiphum Wongrajit stated on Thursday that only half of the 70,300 calls to the 1330 hotline of the National Health Security Office could be answered due to the limited number of operators.

The only people whose calls were not answered were in Bangkok he said. They were people who tested positive for Omicron Covid-19 via antigen tests.

As a result, the Public Health Department has ordered its hospitals in 14 nearby provinces to treat Covid-19 patients from Bangkok as outpatients. The hospitals were capable of managing 18,650 Omicron patients per day, Dr. Kiattiphum said.

Health Department Pushed Home Treatment

The hospitals would provide medication that would allow Covid-19 outpatients to remain at home, and be treated with favipiravir, an antiviral drug. According to Dr. Kiattiphum, only 0.5% of the patients who received home-based treatment had to be admitted to hospitals.

The outpatient Omicron Covid-19 services will be provided free of charge in 14 nearby provinces starting on Friday, he said.

Meanwhile, the deputy permanent secretary for public health Thongchai Kiratihatthayakorn said that most Covid-19 patients who attended such outpatient clinics had no symptoms or only minor ones.

According to the Centre for Covid-19 Situation Administration, daily new Covid-19 cases are expected to peak in the middle of next month.

On Wednesday, 42,138 positive results from antigen tests and 23,618 positive results from RT-PCR tests were reported, giving an unconfirmed total of 65,756 new Omicron cases.