The Health Ministry will be setting up a laboratory testing facility in Monggar for Coronavirus Disease (Covid-19) within the next two days. The Health Minister says this is in preparation for a worst-case scenario of COVID-19 in the country.
The worst-case scenario is multiple cases of Covid-19 reported across the country.
The Health Minister said that given the lack of resources and expertise in the healthcare centres in other districts, the health workers will airlift the severely ill patients to either Monggar Regional Referral Hospital (MRRH) or to Thimphu for intensive care if there are cases of multiple outbreaks throughout the country.
“In case we have cases that require intensive care, we do not have adequate expertise and resources in the health care centres across the nation. In such circumstances, we will airlift the patient to either Thimphu or MRRH for intensive care. So we are planning to deploy a team of expertise each for these two hospitals. We will set up a laboratory testing facility along with ICU at Monggar for the eastern districts,” said Dechen Wangmo, the Health Minister.
The Ministry has also identified a team of five specialists with the national referral hospital to study clinical management of Covid-19 if the situation worsens.
“They will consult experts and specialists in Singapore, America, and India to consult ways for clinical management of the disease. They will be a pool of experts who will make sure the rest of the specialists in the districts also know the clinical management of the disease in the worst-case scenario,” Lyonpo added.
Also in preparation for the worst-case scenario, the Health Minister said the Ministry’s technical advisory group will be visiting hospitals across all 20 districts for two weeks starting Wednesday to inspect the preparation works and to study resource requirements.
Phub Gyem
