GARDEN ROUTE NEWS - Mediclinic George and Geneva had had five days without a single Covid-19 case - until yesterday, Wednesday 27 October, when an unvaccinated patient was admitted.
Mediclinic George manager Kassie Karstens said this was the first time since the start of the third wave that they had no Covid cases in the hospital. "We were relieved and truly grateful. Between the second and third wave in February, we had two days without a Covid patient."
According to Western Cape Health district spokesperson Nadia Ferreira, George Hospital had 10 Covid patients at the beginning of the week.
As at Wednesday 27 October, the Garden Route District had 285 recorded active cases - George 122, Oudtshoorn 49, Mossel Bay 36, Knysna 32, Hessequa 24, Bitou 20 and Kannaland 2. This is a huge improvement from 3 329 a month ago (on 27 September).
In the weekly provincial Covid update last week, head of health in the Western Cape Dr Keith Cloete said 5% of hospital beds in the province was occupied by Covid patients.
What currently keep the hospitals full other than Covid, are trauma cases, which have increased after the lifting of alcohol restrictions.
Increase in mental health cases
Cloete said as the third wave subsides, there has been an increase in people presenting at emergency centres and acute hospitals with acute psychosis and mental and behavioural disorders, mainly related to substance abuse.
(According to the Mental Health Act, a hospital emergency centre becomes the place where someone with acute psychosis presents to be assessed to exclude a medical condition and to be admitted to an acute hospital for up to 72 hours, to see whether there is a need for that person to be admitted to an acute mental facility.)
Cloete said studies have shown that mental disorders have been exacerbated during Covid.
Over the last six months, all hospitals in the province have shown an increase in mental disorder cases. The increase is a result of the impact of three Covid-19 waves decreasing access to mental health services, which had been under pressure even before the pandemic.
"What is needed is a whole-of-society and whole-of-government rethink of our model to manage mental health conditions. This is a big thing. It will receive attention," said Cloete.
During a national dialogue on mental health on Monday 25 October, national health minister Dr Joe Phaahla said South Africa has a long way to go to recover from the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic to rebuild the country's health system and improve mental health services. He said South Africa is far from meeting the World Health Organisation's guidelines for mental health services.
Since April, mental health disorder cases have increased at all hospitals in the Western Cape.
Delta remains dominant
In his weekly update, Cloete said scientists in the UK are keeping a close eye on a new delta sublineage (AY.4.2) detected there. The delta variant remains dominant in South Africa with very little of the beta and C.1.2 variants detected. C.1.2 is being monitored, but has not shown the same prevalence as beta and delta.
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