Healthcare system preparing Covid-19 exit strategy

Because of the coronavirus epidemic, hospitals and other health institutions around the country have limited their services to treating emergency cases, cancer patients, child deliveries and paediatric cases.

But medical experts have been issuing increasingly dire warnings that such a regime must not last too long. Tit Albreht from the Public Health Institute has said a plan should be made before the summer on how to reactivate the healthcare system so as to prevent long-term detrimental effects on the population.

If patients with chronic diseases do not receive proper treatment this will become a big problem, he told the STA.

"You cannot freeze healthcare for 18 months or a year, because you run the risk of losing more patients to various other problems and chronic disease than to the epidemic," said Albreht, who is in charge of the Health Security Centre...