Imtiaz Sooliman – Gift of the Givers questions accuracy of COVID19 figures

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.