MINSK, 7 April (BelTA) – The Belarusian Healthcare Ministry is going to increase deliveries of personal protective gear to all hospitals, Healthcare Minister Vladimir Karanik told reporters answering a question of a BelTA reporter following the meeting with Belarus President Aleksandr Lukashenko to discuss preparedness of the healthcare system to counteract the threat of coronavirus on 7 April.
The minister noted that the requirement to wear face masks in healthcare settings was introduced in Belarus quite a while ago. “Back then mass media assumed that we were implementing a quarantine. This is not a quarantine, but the requirement to keep masks on all the time, because anything can happen: healthcare workers can catch an infection and pass it to their patients,” the minister noted.
Vladimir Karanik emphasized that the safety of medical staff is high on the agenda of the Healthcare Ministry. “There are hospital departments (where coronavirus patients are treated) that are supplied respectively – with hazmat suits, eye and face protection, as well as goggles or face shields, respirators, gloves, surgical boot covers and so on. There is an adequate supply of this protective gear,” he said.
The minister called on people not to go to out-patient clinics with usual respiratory infections: “There are cases when people seek medical care at their local clinic, though we keep asking people to stay indoors if they develop symptoms of a respiratory infection; they should not go anywhere, instead they should call a doctor. But they keep going to out-patient clinics where they are face to face with a general practitioner or they get into any other department, for example, a neurology department, where the protection level of healthcare workers is somewhat lower.”
Vladimir Karanik noted that the requirement to wear face masks will be toughened. “We will find out where face masks are in short supply. There are shortfalls in pharmacies caused by panic buying. There are no shortages of masks in healthcare facilities,” the minister assured. In his words, manufacturers will increase production of masks up to 1 million items per day at the start of next week. This will allow meeting the demand of households and boost PPE stock of masks in healthcare facilities.
The minister went on saying: “Healthcare workers see how their fellow medical professionals from infectious diseases hospitals are equipped and realize that infected patients might get into their hospital. Therefore, they ask why they do not have hazmat suits. Usually each hospital (we will double-check it) should have 50-100 hazmat suits. When a hospital receives the first coronavirus patient, it changes the way this hospital will be supplied.”
Vladimir Karanik emphasized that the Healthcare Ministry is constantly monitoring the situation with the provision of personal protective equipment for healthcare workers.
