Coimbatore Corporation has taken one more step in its fight to control the COVID-19 spread by constituting triage teams that go to positive persons’ doorsteps.
Sources in the Corporation said that thus far all COVID-19 positive persons were asked to go one of the four triage centres nearest to their house – Government College of Technology, St. Francis School near the Coimbatore Medical College Hospital or the Corporation community hall in Ramanathapuram or the Government Medical College and ESI Hospital.
The doctors there would screen the positive persons before recommending them to stay at home in quarantine or referring to a COVID-19 Care Centre or a government hospital.
And, to take the positive persons to a triage centre the Corporation had deployed 50 vehicles at 10 each zone, which the Chief Minister M.K. Stalin had flagged during his visit to Coimbatore on May 30.
But now the Corporation had deployed vehicles in all the five zones where teams comprising doctors and nurses or paramedical staff would go to positive persons’ houses instead of asking them to go to a triage centre.
The sources said the mobile triage centre was for persons below 45 years of age and without co-morbidities.
The doctors and the support staff, in personal protective equipment, call on the positive persons, check their blood oxygen level, respiratory rate, etc., handover a medicine kit and tell the precautions they would have to take during their quarantine period at home.
They would also create awareness among the family members. The number of positive persons each triage team would visit on a day depended on the list the Corporation gave and varied based on the daily positive case count.
The Corporation had deployed the mobile triage teams since Wednesday, the sources said and added that the reception among the city’s residents was rather mixed because many positive persons feared that the triage teams would take them to either a COVID-19 Care Centre or hospital.
They also felt stigmatised, requested the teams to not call on them at home and in a few cases, the positive persons also switched off mobile phones after the teams reached out to them over phone, the sources said.
As for positive persons over 45 years of age, they would have to go a triage centre near their house.
This was because the 45-plus category was comparatively more vulnerable than the below 45 years of age category and at triage centres there would be a couple of more tests than was done at positive persons houses by the mobile teams, the sources explained. Meanwhile, the number of positive cases went below the 1,100 mark in the city. As on June 2, the number stood at 1,086, down from the 1,201 cases recorded on June 1.