Navigating Health Care during covid- 19

It’s been a few weeks since Covid- 19 was first found in Jamaica, living with the deadly respiratory disease has now become our new normal.

Here are some tips on how to seek health care during this time.

If an appointment is coming up:

Call your doctor and find out the status of your appointment. What will happen is completely dependent on the reason for the appointment. If you just need a prescription rewritten the doctor may send it to a pharmacy or ask you to pick it up.

This is definitely done on a case by case basis.

For hospital patients, some hospitals have been calling patients and telling them whether to come or not, or to simply pick up a refill of their prescription.

If it’s an Unscheduled visit:

If the reason for seeing the doctor isn’t an emergency, call ahead. Unfortunately, this might not be possible if you’re accessing public care- such as a health centre. Your doctor might be able to give you advice over the phone and determine whether or not you really need to come in for a visit.

If you don’t want to venture outside, you can use telemedicine services, which more and more persons have been using.

If It’s an emergency:

If you’re having symptoms of Covid- 19 call the Ministry of Health and Wellness’ hotline: 888-ONE-LOVE (663-5683) and follow the instructions accordingly. If you need to go to the hospital ensure to pack a mask and limit the number of persons going with you (if necessary) to one.

what to bring:

Since you’ll be leaving your house, it is now mandatory that everyone wear masks. I encourage you to bring more than one mask so that the mask can be changed as needed. Along with your mask, bring hand sanitiser so that you can frequently clean your hands.

What to do:

Practice social distancing as best as you can.

If you don’t need to bring anyone in the at risk group with you, leave them at home. This includes children, elderly persons and people with illnesses such as hypertension, diabetes and asthma. These persons are more likely to have a more likely to have complications if infected with Covid- 19 because their immune system is weakened.

Make appointments for seeking healthcare has much as you can.

Right now, Covid- 19 is still here. It is important that we do not let our guards down and continue to protect ourselves as best as possible to prevent the spread of this disease.

Have any other tips I didn’t add? Comment below!

Samantha C. Johnson