Aster DM Healthcare Qatar has started online consultation and home delivery of medicines among other services to reduce the spread of Covid-19 in the country. “The Ministry of Public Health (MoPH) has issued several regulations to reduce the spread of Covid-19 in the country in three different modalities.

We have strictly enforced all these regulations and reduced the number or stopped all elective procedures as per the guidelines of MoPH. We have also reduced most outpatient services in both aster medical centres and the hospital,” said Dr Sameer Moopan, CEO, Aster Qatar.

Several measures are in place at Aster facilities to reduce crowd in the waiting areas of clinics and the hospital. “We have increased the number of the slots for appointment. We have started online consultation for two third of the patients. For the online consultations, currently, we are using Zoom platform, which is very common among public and later we might also introduce other facilities,” he said. The offi cial told that the chairs at the waiting area have been arranged to ensure social distancing. “We are informing our patients to use our online appointment system which reduces waiting time. In some facilities, we advise patients to wait in their own cars after registration and we call them as per the waiting list.

Most importantly, after the initial consultation, we are informing patients to use online consultation for follow-up,” he explained. According to the CEO, all chronic patients have been advised to use online consultation facility. “They might have their own testing facility with them. So they can share the report with us online. Doctor will do the consultation online and medicines will be prescribed. We have a facility of home delivery of medicines free of cost. This is an approved process by the drug control department of MoPH.

So we can deliver the prescribed medicines at their doorsteps,” he noted. Dr Moopan said that only urgent cases need to be seen in the clinic with reports. “In all other cases, we will make appointments for radiology and lab investigations as the case may be. Or even, they can give the sample and leave at the time of visit. Once the reports are ready, we will initiate the online consultation and treatment.”

He also said that all the staff have been divided in to three groups for 10 days each. “We are using only one third of the staff and we will change them every 10 days so that even if anyone is exposed to Covid-19, the rest of the staff will be safe. We have divided them to three groups and arranged accommodation for them in three different groups of houses. The people who are coming for duty will be in same accommodation and rest of them in other accommodations. In this way we also assure that we can provide our staff for any duties if the government asks for,” Dr Moopan said.

Source https://img.gulf-times.com/Content/PDF/Dailynewspaper/Main2020_3_25824421.PDF

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