The COVID-19 pandemic has tested the health services like never before. Most countries saw the health service crumbling in exhaustion due to an overwhelming number of cases requiring intensive care. And as much as the health sector has been on the receiving end, the importance of the sector is also elevated to a height it so deserves.
Themed “Essential health services in times of COVID-19 and beyond”, over 100 participants of health experts from eight different countries including Bhutan are participating in the 6th international virtual conference on medical and health sciences 2020. It was launched today to share experiences of how these countries have managed the pandemic while still providing other health services and learn from each other if there is an outbreak of another pandemic.
“Globally if you see, death due to COVID is 1.5 million but death due to other diseases is a hundredfold more than COVID. So we need to give attention to provisions of other health services like mother and child health care, then contraceptives, STI and HIV/AIDS, TB, malaria, dengue and also health facilities need to attend to all emergency cases,” said Dr Ugen Dophu, the Secretary of the Health Ministry.
Bhutan has taken a lead in handling COVID situation. With the current number of 378 confirmed cases so far, there is no community transmission and death. This as per the health secretary is something Bhutan can share with the world. He said this conference will teach them a lot in addition to the effort the country has made.
“We have more to share with other countries in the world but what we need to learn is maybe how more efficient we can become because some countries would have done whatever we did in a more efficient way. So efficiency and quality improvement,” he added.
He also added that Bhutan is doing well in terms of providing health care services despite the pandemic, unlike other countries. However, in case of community transmission of COVID-19, shortage of manpower in the health sector is still one pressing issue which will need attention.
Samten Dolkar
