Health minister visits Royal Hospital

Muscat: Dr Ahmed Mohammed al-Sa’eedi, Minister of Health, paid a visit to the Royal Hospital (RH) on Wednesday to acknowledge the remarkable efforts of its medical and administrative teams amid this extraordinary time, ensuring the hospital’s workflow.
The Minister visited various departments including the intensive care unit, the pediatric post-surgery care unit, the critical care unit, the maternity ward, laboratory departments, pharmacy, gynecology, the isolation department of patients with coronavirus (COVID-19), the departments of the National Oncology Center and a number of other departments of the hospital.
The Minister of Health met the hospital’s administration and health workers, and listened to their suggestions and opinions on improving the quality of provided health services for patients, urging everyone to do their best during this critical time. Meanwhile, al-Sa’eedi visited a number of COVID-19 patients who are on treatment where he checked on their health and the progress of the treatment process.
The Health Minister valued the efforts of the medical staff who are playing a major role in limiting the fast spread of the virus, including physicians, nurses, medical assistant groups, engineers, administrators, and others.
The Minister pointed out to the fact that the Sultanate has started preparation for COVID-19 response since the announcement of the disease in China where procedures were taken to slow down its spread with the joint cooperation of all health workers and public. Till this moment, the epidemiological curve is still controllable alongside the expected continuous increasing growth in the number of cases.
Remarking on the cases growth, al-Sa’eedi attributed it to first lack of some people compliance with instructions regarding staying at home and social distancing, secondly due to the intensified medical tests, therefore the increase is expected in this situation. The health minister hence urged all to remain at homes and never go out unless absolutely necessary.
Speaking of figures, al-Sa’eedi stated that the number of confirmed COVID-19 cases in the Sultanate till now has not exceeded 910 cases, the number of hospitals’ admissions is no more than 35 cases, and deaths stand at 4.
He noted that the Royal Hospital has a good capacity to accommodate more than 150 to 200 intensive care beds if necessary; nonetheless, there are basic health services that must continue as obstetrics, gynecological services, cancer services, heart services and emergency critical operations.
He also stressed that the health and safety of the health staff take always top priority in the health sector domain. Therefore, we are seeking to provide them with all the required equipment, medications and preventive cloths. A number of 16 air flights to China have been run to supply the Sultanate with the needed equipment, reagents and supplies.
Furthermore, the health minister remarked on the plasma transfusion procedure performed on Tuesday being the first in the Sultanate, where its indications were promising in other countries.
He assured that the Sultanate at the moment has sufficient stock of drugs used in all countries for this disease. Deployment of modern techniques in dealing with this pandemic are further ran to track the infected cases, as well as institutional and home quarantined cases, and they are to be announced next week.