Imtiaz Sooliman – Gift of the Givers questions accuracy of COVID19 figures
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The speakers discuss the importance of providing accurate and accurate death figures, as well as the need for officials to ensure the accuracy of the numbers for oxygen delivery. They stress the need for officials to ensure the accuracy of the numbers for oxygen delivery, particularly in regards to hospital facilities over capacitated and over capacitated. The speakers emphasize the importance of taking all possible measures to ensure the safety of others.
AI: Summary ©
Humanitarian aid organization, gift of the givers, claims that
the covid 19 death figures released by the Department of
Health are inaccurate. They say that the current numbers do not
include the large number of people who die before getting to
hospital, while waiting in line for treatment, or even those
queering their covid 19 status, the organization says that the
majority of citizens do not have access to adequate health care
facilities. And the organization's founder, Dr MTS Suleiman, joins me
now via zoom for more on this. Thanks so much indeed for joining
us. What alerted you to this shortfall in the in the numbers
that are coming out in terms of deaths. Doctor sutherman,
good evening. First. Just to make it clear, we're not saying that
any anyone is, you know, deliberately doctoring the figures
or deliberately giving the wrong figures. It's just a matter of
administration and a matter of practicality. Whilst visiting
hospitals in various parts of the country, we were told by many of
the doctors in casualty, CEOs, and, you know, intensive us
doctors told us, look, the figures here are not correct, because many
people come to the outpatients. They come to casualty, and they
see the amount of people waiting to get oxygen, to be treated, and
they get, they sort of tie out, some of them going from hospital
to hospital. Some of them even spending six hours on a road to
try to get some oxygen, because right now, the sector faces our
oxygen. And they say when they see the amount of people waiting, they
just turn around and they go home and they die in their homes. They
also told us when they've been telling us in many of the
hospitals, and we've been getting feedback from many doctors, that
many of the patients die in the cars, and that's not only in
public hospitals. That's also in private hospitals. The patients
die in cars outside coming to the hospital, and then we also told of
those dying in the queue waiting to come into casualty. All those
numbers are not accounted for, not because anybody wants to commit
them or deliberately ignore them. It's just a matter of practicality
and administration. When the staff are overwhelmed, when you go to
the casualties, and you see how the staff are overwhelmed, and you
see the tightness and exhaustion, the last thing they're worried
about, you know, because people have passed on, there's not much
they can do for them, and if the family members take them away. So
those figures are not recorded, the real figures we will get is to
the death certificates and home affairs, that organ of government,
but eventually, in time, be able to provide the correct members of
deaths to the death certificates, because that figures will come
from those passed on at home, the queues in the cars, everywhere.
And the other point is that when you speak to funeral palace, and
again, if you speak to those at hospitals, they'll tell you that
the funeral panels have told them they've never been this busy in
the history. So the figures are far more higher than what we have.
But again, I stress it's not deliberately doctored. It's just a
practicality, and it's not possible to get all those figures
of those dying at home or in the queues, alright? So what's the gap
and time delay between somebody dying and somebody getting a death
certificate? Because there's got to be a cause of death, there is
it a long period of time. Is that? Why? Perhaps this gap in numbers?
I mean, eventually, as you say, perhaps we will get a full
undertaking. But on the death certificate, will it say covid,
19?
I think it does say that. Because this ivory and have the stats of
how many people died or what kind of conditions, and whether it was
MBAs, whether it was infectious disease or cancer, I think they
have a place in that certificate to say, You know what the cause of
death was. So the facts, the figures that we are getting is
from hospital stats and from medical stats. We're not getting
it from home affairs. And the Home Affairs stats are not being quoted
because it's still being collated, but at some point, I'm sure when
the announcement is made, because remember earlier last year, when
they gave the figure, when the figures were given, they said
there was outstanding 30,000 deaths extra compared to the
period of previous periods, and those deaths were not really
accounted for, not knowing whether they came from covid or they came
from something else. So there were extra figures, and those things
were still going to be worked out in a similar manner. Right now,
again, the government organ of form affairs is probably the best
suited at the right time to release figures whenever that
happens, but I'm sure there's going to be a much highest count
and the people have passed on from covid. You know, that's given from
the health figures than from the home office. Because I suppose the
obvious thing about not knowing the true picture is that you your
interventions then will be different because it's based on
insufficient information.
No, not really. Your intervention is still the same. It's just
educated for, you know, a larger or smaller number of people
intervention, in this case, you know, in the second wave, is
mostly about oxygen. People are coming to the hospital for one
purpose only. They're coming because they can't breathe. A.
Of them are doing home care or getting oxygen concentrators on
loan, and quite a few of them manage on that. It's fine. It
takes the burden of the hospital. But there are those who don't
manage on oxygen concentrators, and those who don't have access to
oxygen concentrators, as they come in numbers to the hospital. So the
management is clear. You require an oxygen point. You require a
regular bulk flow of oxygen, but large oxygen tanks, and you
require a delivering advice, an oxygen delivery advice in
whichever form that may be, whether it be of nasal prongs,
whether it be a non rebreather, whether it be CPAP machines or
high flow nasal oxygen machines. And eventually you'll be you've
put on the ventilator, but the preparation has to be the same.
The only thing that's difficult is, will the hospital or the
facility manage, or the number of patients that come to that single
facility at any one time? And that's why a lot of patients move,
both in the public sector and in the private sector, from hospital
trying to find an oxygen and you find the other people who can give
you a good feedback on that an ambulance services, they will tell
you, we were sitting with a patient for six hours or eight
hours or 10 hours in the ambulance giving him or her oxygen and
waiting for a bed or waiting for a facility where the patient could
get oxygenated.
Alright, so I guess what I'm trying to get at is, if people are
dying in their cars and dying and going home and not coming back,
what it's telling us is that our hospitals are over capacitated,
and new facilities need to be created, but we don't know what
the number is of what the new facility should be prepared for.
If these statistics are insufficient.
Well, you know, we never going to know the numbers. Peter, no
government in the world is going to know the numbers, because we
don't know how this virus will hit and how many people is going to
hit. We've seen it, you know. Let's see the first world
countries, USA and Europe, they've battled with the best hospital
facilities in the world. And this cannot be blamed on anybody.
Nobody expected this kind of catastrophic that so many people
will get ill at the same time, you know, and so many oxygens
required, to the point that even oxygen couldn't come fast enough.
It just numbers were too huge. So nobody can actually prepare for an
eventuality like this. At some point you're going to run out if
let's take a simple case in in non covid times, you have dialysis
facilities, and the dialysis facilities can look after 16
patients, but 20 patients come for dialysis. What happens? The small
patients cannot be seen. We've tried to get them in another
facility. Either facility is full, it's the same kind of problem. You
have so many oxygen points, you have so many patients coming but
there's more patients than oxygen points. And you can try to set up
as and government has tried, and private, private hospitals have
tried, and everybody's trying to set up as many oxygen points as
possible. But at some point, if the numbers keep rising that way,
the way they've been rising in the last few weeks, although it's
coming down as well, but now, but the way they were rising, we are
going to be overrun, and that's going to happen here and anywhere
else in the world. So what do we do? We know that the death figures
are not telling us the whole story, but we know what we must
do. What can we do
in terms of, well, we've got this gap in the numbers of people dying
because people are arriving, dying in their cars, driving home and
dying. What do we do as an intervention to make sure that
they don't die in their cars and that they're not going away and
driving home to die at home instead?
Well, not much we can do from a practical point of view, because
there's few things to remember here. Number one, the onus is on
yourself as a South African citizen, to make sure you take all
the precautions. Yes, incidentally, you may catch it
from somebody else in your family, but as far as possible, you are
your best safeguard. But you have to take every precaution, whether
and if you to avoid crowds and going out as much as possible. The
reality is that everybody can't do that, but if you have to do that,
the masking, the sanitizing, the distance, be careful in a taxi,
come out of taxi, not touching your face, your nose, your eyes,
your mouth, all those things are very, very important. That's the
first thing at home. Again, if you come from different workplaces,
it's sad, but we sort of sort of have to socially distance in our
own homes, or physically distance, rather, in our own homes if we
work in different places. Because this time around, we're finding
that, in the past, maybe one or two family members got healed, and
this case, 1015, members all in the same household are getting
healed. And in many cases, two to three family members are passing
on at the same time, so every family member that goes out has to
be extra careful. And you find even like a medical people who are
working in high risk facilities come and they say, separate from
the families. It's an inevitable part of the prevention system in
the covid 19. The other thing is, why people are dying their cars
and dying casualties for.
Some reason they come into late to the hospital. And every single
casualty CEO and medical personnel in the different hospitals all
told us the same thing. For some reason, people are coming very
late to the hospital, and I don't know why that is taking why, why
that is happening, but a general message that you're having
difficulty in breathing, if you have what you think are the signs
of covid, rather sick, medical attention early, you know, because
if the problem with that is the oxygen saturation drops very, very
suddenly. And talking to nurses, they came to me and I spoke to
them, they said, We demoralize, we disillusioned, and it seems that
we're not doing our job properly. So I said, Why are you not doing
your job properly? What are you referring to? And they say, our
patient is on the bed. He's smiling, or she's smiling and
talking to us, we turn around to fetch the food, and when we turn
back to give the food to the patient, the patient is dead, the
oxygen saturation just dropped very, very suddenly. And that's
maybe seeming to be the problem. Why people who come to hospital
are coming late. That may be one of the reasons, or they have the
difficulty at home, can't get transport, or scared to go to
hospital or thing, it will just settle down. Hopefully it is
nothing major, and take the risk. And maybe that's what's happening,
and people die coming to hospitals, but the message I've
got from every facility is people are coming too late. All right,
Doctor Sumlin, we'll leave it there, but thanks very much indeed
for again, reinforcing that all important message is, do the
protocols that could save lives, and also, as soon as you get those
symptoms, go to a healthcare facility as quickly as you can. Dr
Sullivan, thanks so much indeed for your time.
Pleasure. Peter, thank you. You.