Medical staff face dilemma in dealing with elderly, those with special needs
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‘Situation requires an admin circular’
KUWAIT CITY, Nov 9: As a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, the visits of the elderly and people with special needs to clinics represent an organizational and moral dilemma that requires an immediate and urgent solution. The medical staff often find themselves faced with options that place them in the sphere of blame, especially when an elderly person or an individual with special needs visit them without an appointment, despite the full schedule of the appointments made by the visitors with prior reservations, reports Al-Qabas daily.
This segment gets great interest from various government agencies in terms of giving them priority for the completion of transactions, which is translated by the administrative staff by booking an immediate appointment for them. However, the medical staff often face embarrassment in admitting them, knowing that this will affect the turns of the prior-booked visitors, especially with the presence of dates long postponed due to the pandemic.
It is a known fact that visiting most public clinics requires an advance reservation, given the presence of postponed appointments due to the pandemic, which caused confusion in terms of the medical appointments granted to most patients, especially in specialized centers and hospitals. What makes matters worse is that some elderly visitors are not aware of how to use modern technology to book appointments. Some do not even have smartphones, and therefore cannot book an appointment or confirm it when they arrive at the clinic.
Medical staff and health facility employees find it difficult to reject the elderly and those with special needs for various reasons, including the patient’s health status and recommendations from authorities to give them priority. The staff are exposed to embarrassment in the event that they are received sometimes due to doctors’ commitment to the scheduled appointments for the day, and their keenness not to breach them. Verbal altercations may occur between the visitors and the administrative staff.
In most cases, employees are forced to set immediate appointments for the elderly visitors upon their arrival at the hospital, but this is not always successful, as appointments are not available to any references because of the congestion in the centers of some medical specialties. It is impossible to set an appointment via the electronic system without some visitors having a smartphone. The administrative employee then intervenes and communicates with the specialist doctor to follow up the case to receive the patient, but prior appointments for other patients prevent this.
When the elderly and people with special needs go out of the house, they are more vulnerable to getting infected with COVID- 19 virus. Therefore, when visiting any facility for a vital reason, they must stay in the open or in well-ventilated areas, as well as maintain a safe distance from others.
The Ministry of Health considers caring for the elderly as one of the main priorities, such that the Health Services Department for the Elderly has been working, since its inception in March 2014, to provide various health, psychosocial and other services for the elderly.
However, the current situations require an administrative circular that gives broader powers to the medical staff and administrative staff in dealing smoothly with the elderly visitors and those with special needs in order to avoid any confusion or arguments in health facilities.
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