“The emergency department (ED) used to see a sea of body bags and patient beds, with canvas sheets lining the floor - you could see them at every nook and corner. But now you can see the floor.”
This was the vivid picture painted by Dr. Hana Hadzrami, an anaesthesiologist at the Kuala Lumpur Hospital, in a Facebook post on Saturday (August 14th).
Photo via Malay Mail
In her Facebook post, she said that the number of referrals from the ED to the ICU (intensive care unit) for critically ill COVID patients has also decreased. Previously, the waiting list would fill up the board at the ICU, with pages and pages posted up due to the lack of space on the board.
“Now, even the board has cleared up a bit,” she wrote in the post which garnered over 2,000 comments and 14,000 shares at the time of writing.
She continued her post by saying that the number of elderly COVID-19 patients have also gone down since July, as have the number of locals admitted for the illness since last week. In fact, she said, the majority of patients who came in to be treated for COVID-19 at the hospital since last week were foreigners.
The number of patients who needed to be admitted to the ICU and fatalities due to COVID-19 have also decreased.
“We in the Klang Valley are starting to see a glimmer of light at the end of this dark tunnel. It’s faint, but it’s filled with hope,” said Dr. Hana who believes that the positive development was due to the increased vaccination rate.
The member of Medical Mythbuster Malaysia told BERNAMA there were still COVID-19 patients admitted into the ICU among Malaysian citizens but the majority comprised those who refused vaccination.
Apparently, the vaccinated patients recovered very quickly compared to the unvaccinated ones.
Dr. Hana said that in the hospital, four vaccinated patients who needed ventilator support were on it for only three to four days before recovering, while patients who had yet to be vaccinated needed respiratory support for two to three weeks.
However, the number of COVID-19 patients in the ICU are still high as the numbers included patients that were admitted from last month.
Sebenarnya dari minggu lepas saya simpan khabar gembira ini. Kami di Lembah Klang sudah mulai nampak titik cahaya...
Posted by Hana Hadzrami on Saturday, August 14, 2021
We’re all in this together, guys! Let’s help our frontliners flatten the curve by abiding by the SOPs, wear a face mask when you’re out in public, maintain physical distance and only go out for essential matters!
But most importantly, please get yourself vaccinated if you haven’t! It’s the only way we can all return to some form of normalcy.
By: Aishah Akashah Ahadiat
