Page 123 - MALAYSIA HEALTH SECTOR RESPONSE TO COVID-19 PANDEMIC: PERSPECTIVES FROM THE FIELD

Apart from that, beds were also made readily available for the admission of
PUI/ suspected/ probable cases and SARI cases in Kapit Hospital and
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Limbang Hospital in view of their logistic issues .
In order to ensure efficient bed management, daily hospital admissions for
the three categories of patients: the confirmed cases, PUI/ suspected/
probable cases, and SARI cases, were monitored closely and reported to the
state health department before being analysed and plotted to monitor their
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trends . Hospitals involved would be consulted if the total patients in their
wards and PKRC already had an occupancy of 50% of their total dedicated
beds. Maximising the bed usage in the PKRC was prioritised to reserve the
beds in the wards for symptomatic and critical patients.

In preparing the hospitals in Sarawak to battle the pandemic, an alert level
was created and prepared by the COVID-19 Alert Level Team, which was
published on 6th September 2020, titled “COVID-19 Alert Levels for the New
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Normal for Sarawak” (Table 5.1). The alert system was based mainly on
the model developed and used by New Zealand, which focused specifically
on COVID-19.

The alert-level systems provided a framework for the SDMC to support clear
decision-making, improve accountability, and communication with the
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public, to increase and advocate a change of health behaviour . The SDMC
would determine the risk level of COVID-19 in Sarawak based on specified
data and algorithms. This risk level was subsequently communicated to the
public using easily understood terms, together with pre-specified
prevention and control measures for each alert level.

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