Recommendations for Emergency Management of Severe Communicable Disease – Lesson Learned from the Emergency Medical Service Management of COVID-19 Epidemic in Thailand

Abstract

The epidemic situation of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) in Thailand was severe and the spread was rapid in 2021 with the daily number of infected people reached 9,635, especially in Bangkok and surrounding areas. As a result, hospital beds were insufficient for COVID-19 patients. and severely affect access to treatment services. This was especially true in patients with severe symptoms whose number was increasing resulting in overcrowding in emergency rooms. Ministry of Public Health of Thailand established field hospitals and hospitels to keep the group of patients who were in good condition (the green criteria) but it was still not enough to support the number of patients. The final plan for dealing with the epidemic of COVID-19 was to advise COVID-19 patients to stay home (home isolation or community isolation), and formed multidisciplinary teams of health professionals from local hospitals to provide advises on the care. Such approach had greatly reduced the congestion. As a volunteer physician in the Primary Care Hub project “ComCOVID-19 FM CoCare”, the author had observed and took note of multiple interesting issues which could formulate policy recommendations to improve planning of emergency medical response for communicable disease in Thailand which focus on home treatment and logistics for medication, medical supplies and medical equipment to the patient’s home.