Health authority conducts emergency meetings as T&T overwhelmed with COVID patients

Port-of-Spain, Trinidad and Tobago: The team of the North Central Regional Health Authority met in an emergency meeting after a record-breaking wave of patients requiring COVID-19 testing and care engulfed the system.The government stated that in the face of increasing challenges arising from the recent surge in positive COVID-19 cases, the North Central Regional Health Authority remains committed to the task of delivering quality healthcare.Chief Executive Officer Davlin Thomas stated" we will defend our high standards. The North Central Health Authority will ensure that our patients and staff operate within an environment that supports dignity, respect for our brothers and sisters and defending the vulnerable."He added that NCRHA has increasingly engaged, without fear, systematic and structured innovations to combat the effects of COVID-19 on the healthcare system, while simultaneously boosting its capacity to treat with the recent 300% increase in the positive cases, with a simultaneous and exponential increase in the demand for COVID-19 testing. "We identified that bottlenecks emerged during the wave which resulted in some congestion in the general intake. Our multidisciplinary team met late last night to rethink our systems and to make the necessary alterations and consequent improvements to the patient and staff experience," Chief Executive Officer of the NCRHA, Mr. Davlin Thomas stated.The team huddled and regrouped to identify and embrace the standards that each manager and member of staff now has to defend on the frontline. These standards are grounded in restoring and ensuring patient dignity.He stated examined its process flow, from the initial phases of testing; to the acquiring of results; and to the transfer of those patients who were positive to quarantine facilities, the NCRHA is adapting and building muscle, rolling out interventions to mitigate challenges.

The COVID-19 patients have occupied 41% of the hospital bed capacity in Trinidad and Tobago.