[ad_1]
Dr Suthan Kaveri might recall clearly the primary few days of the floods, when on the afternoon of December 19, 2021, he visited a flood aid centre arrange in Sekolah Jenis Kebangsaan (Tamil) Ladang Emerald, Taman Sri Muda.
He was there to distribute further shares of face masks that his firm, ePink Health, had when he got here to the realisation that the centre lacked medical standby.
Being from a telemedicine platform, Dr Suthan knew he might leverage their community of medical doctors and different medical professionals to the good thing about the flood victims.
So, he set to work bringing in his inside groups and blasting messages to medical professionals he knew to return and assist out.
By the night of December 19 itself, he’d assembled a group and arrange an emergency discipline clinic, segregating folks into inexperienced, yellow, and pink zones primarily based on the emergency of their medical wants.
Making sense of the chaos
The inexperienced zones have been the place flood victims with frequent colds, the flu, coughing, fever, complications, and extra, would get handled. Over within the yellow zone, Dr Suthan and his group have been tending to these with low blood stress, uncontrolled diabetes, hypertension, and so on.
“The flood victims were stuck [in their locations] for 48 hours before being rescued, and their medications had already been washed away by the flood,” Dr Suthan revealed in an interview with Vulcan Post.
“For 48 hours, they didn’t take any medication. So definitely, their blood pressure, diabetes, weren’t under control.”
In the 7 days that Dr Suthan and his group have been current on the centre, he estimated that they gave out about RM50K value of treatment.
These funds got here from donors throughout Malaysia who paid on to pharmacies, who then delivered the treatment to the group.
For sufferers who have been in additional extreme states than the treatment might management, the group needed to stabilise them first earlier than transferring them to the closest hospitals.
Meanwhile, within the pink zone, they needed to resuscitate sufferers who had collapsed. As we cycled by way of Dr Suthan’s reminiscences of occasions, he recalled a very impactful one they noticed within the pink zone—having to help a mom who was going by way of preterm labour.
While he retold the story, I couldn’t assist however really feel sorry for the mom, imagining the nervousness she would possibly’ve felt from first being shocked over the flash floods, getting displaced, then going into labour in a aid centre filled with tons of to hundreds of different victims.
On the medical doctors’ finish, Dr Suthan relayed the adrenaline rush his group felt as they labored to stabilise her, all the way in which up till she was transported to a safer location to offer start.
From mass remedy to accommodate calls
From his recollection, there was by no means a gradual day on the centre, particularly after they needed to be cautious of COVID-19 an infection dangers too.
With so many individuals to take care of and a group of about 30 to are inclined to all, the medical group discovered themselves spending most of their time on the centre.
Dr Suthan himself acknowledged that he spent extra time there than at dwelling for the week, even showering and having his meals there.
By December 25, the centre was closed, however eager to proceed volunteering, the ePink Health group opened a small medical sales space deeper into Taman Sri Muda on December 27. They carried out related companies up till New Year’s Eve.
“Currently, we still have a balance of medication though. So, what we’re doing are a house-to-house screening and free medication delivery,” Dr Suthan shared.
The initiative started on January 7, and could be repeated each weekend for an indefinite length, at the least till the opposite clinics in Taman Sri Muda are capable of reopen.
Altogether, he has a group of about 40 volunteers unfold out throughout the neighbourhood to execute the plan.
On a daily day if the floods hadn’t occurred, ePink Health would offer telehealth consultations from medical doctors, nutritionists, psychologists, and extra, together with e-pharmacy companies, and home calls upon request.
During the previous month of floods, nevertheless, volunteering turned the highest precedence particularly within the first devastating week.
Thus, its ordinary operations have been placed on maintain momentarily. With the house-to-house screening and drugs deliveries although, Dr Suthan organized them for weekends particularly in order that ePink Health might proceed as ordinary from Mondays to Fridays.
Moving ahead smarter and higher ready
Based on his expertise at Taman Sri Muda, he had some parting recommendation to share to ensure that us to be higher ready ought to related pure disasters (crossing my fingers) occur once more.
“What we can do is digitalise simple medical records, like what are the basic medications people are taking,” he famous.
“We can also spread awareness that if you are in a flood-prone area and want to save your IC, passport, please package your chronic medication together too.” This method, the difficulty of treatment getting washed away may be prevented.
If assets allow, medical groups might arrange aid centres prematurely too as soon as the nation has been warned about impending flash floods or related by MetMalaysia.
As for a way ePink Health and related digital healthcare corporations can additional contribute on this house, Dr Suthan mentioned that that they had been accumulating knowledge of the flood victims they handled.
“We have dissected them according to the severity, type of diseases, and any acute conditions that arose due to the floods.”
“Based on these, we can share the data with KKM to come up with a proper plan to prepare and cater better to those specific conditions should serious floods happen again,” he mentioned.
For instance, if the info exhibits that there have been numerous chronically diabetic sufferers who misplaced their drugs within the current floods, for any future disasters, such treatment might be ready prematurely for deployment to aid centres.
In all, what I garnered from chatting with Dr Suthan was that the know-how, knowledge, and manpower from the personal healthcare sector are all available. We simply have to harness them higher.
- Read extra flood-related content material right here.
Featured Image Credit: Dr Suthan Kaveri, ePink Health
[ad_2]
Source link
