Deaths due to delayed hospital admission on the rise in Kerala

Experts flag the need for better monitoring of those in home isolation

The critical gaps in Kerala’s care initiatives for COVID-19 patients in home isolation need to be identified and rectified urgently as deaths due to incremental delays in reaching these patients to hospitals at the appropriate time have been going up, adding to the State’s COVID-19 mortality. According to the Health Department’s data presented before the Chief Minister on August 28, the proportion of COVID-19 deaths due to admission delays was 22.39%. (Deaths happening at home, during transit and within one to three days of admission in hospitals are collectively taken as deaths due to admission delays). However, beyond flagging the issue, at the field-level, little seems to have been done to resolve the issues in home care as two weeks later, this figure has gone up.