S. Africa centre hosts COVID-19 patients who can't quarantine

Coronavirus patients in South Africa who are unable to quarantine themselves can find refuge at this facility in Johannesburg.

Patients are referred to the centre by a doctor so they can avoid infecting family members at home.

“Patients who are here are patients that, in essence, don’t require much medical intervention except observation that will be done in the morning in terms of temperature and also other vital signs. So, in these types of facilities, it’s only very much stable actual patients. But we are not ruling out the fact that we might have to, at some point, escalate the service as we are putting up extra hospital beds for patients that will be requiring intervention. It might mean that if the numbers increase, we might need to increase the capacity here”, Bandile Masuku, a member of the Executive Committee for Health said.

The centre was set up by the South African government. It provides the bulk of basic services to patients, beginning with food.

South Africa is the most affected country on the continent with more than 160,000 confirmed cases.

AP