By Mduduzi Hlophe

MBABANE: Health experts within the Ministry of Health expressed different views whether homecare should be adopted as one of the appropriate measures in the fight against COVID-19.

This comes Health Minister announced numbers suggesting that homecare patients were recovering faster than those hospitalised. Reached for comments, Dr Simon Zwane the Principal Secretary in the Ministry of Health when reached for comment said it\'s too early to make such conclusions.

\"It’s difficult to determine as one major factor could be the turnaround time for results. It could be by chance that the home care results come back faster, thus quick decision making. Otherwise I wouldn’t say it’s about quality of care, because many people are asymptomatic or mild and end up recovering. It’s hard to know who will take longer to recover, whether home care or hospital care as some data from other countries seem to suggest that home care is not the best way to manage COVID-19 patient. We will continue to monitor this space as we get more data\" he said.

When reached for comment, Bheki Mamba the President for the Swaziland Democratic Nurses Union (SWADNU) suggested that the Ministry should launch an investigation as there might be a lot of contributing factors to these numbers.

\"We need to ascertain if there is no cross infection in hospitals, since in a hospital you find a group of people sharing a ward whereas in home based care a person is kept alone in an isolation room. The rate of recovery in hospitals might be slowed down by cross infection. We also need to know if samples for hospital patients are taken on time and if the equipment used  matches that of  the staff monitoring home based care patients\" said the SWADNU President.

Lizzie Nkosi, the Minister of Health revealed this in a press statement issued on Saturday afternoon when announcing 4 new cases of COVID 19. The number of COVID 19 patients in the country now stands at 283 with 168 recoveries.

\"When comparing the cases that have been discharged from home care with those discharged from hospital,  the numbers show that 66% of homecare patients have been discharged and 57% of hospital care patients have also been discharged\" said the Minister.