Health workers to be trained to treat patients with home care kits in Karnataka

BENGALURU:  In order to fight misinformation about Covid-19 and its mismanagement, which has led to an alarming rise in complications, sufferings, deaths, frontline clinicians and leading scientists from India and the Indian diaspora have developed evidence-based Covid-19 care.

The recently launched partnership, Swasth Community Science Alliance (CSA), will provide a suite of timely clinical resources for use in rural and urban settings, all vetted for scientific accuracy. “There is a two-pronged approach.

We have developed home monitoring kits for health workers, managers and patients and another Covid-19 care centre kit (where oxygen is needed) for health workers, managers and patients. These include YouTube videos, information on the website and through PDF,” said Charuta Mandke, ophthalmologist at Cooper Hospital in Mumbai and co-founder of CSA. ASHA workers and community health workers will be trained to treat mild to moderate patients at home, what medicines to prescribe, what not to give or to administer judiciously so it does not lead to complications such as mucormycosis, etc.

Doctors and nurses at CCCs will be trained on using oxygen concentrators, nasal prongs, how much oxygen to give, when to refer the patient to tertiary care centres, etc. Patients will be trained to use oximeters and thermometers.

“The goal of the partnership is to provide step-by-step guidance to implement scientifically sound Covid monitoring and treatment strategies for care and at home treatments in resource-constrained settings,” said Dr Rajani Bhat, pulmonologist from Bengaluru, and a convener of CSA.

CSA will tie up with NGOs and other organisations. Through the partnership, they will train 30,000 ASHA workers. Those from other countries can use the resources publicly available on https://science.swasth.app.