KUALA LUMPUR: Former premier Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad today questioned the practice of allowing certain Covid-19 patients to self-quarantine at their respective homes, instead of being admitted to hospital.
He said recently, one of his family members who was infected with Covid-19 was told to stay at home, and this led to more infections in the household, affecting other family members.
According to Dr Mahathir, the person was finally admitted to hospital after having breathing difficulties at home.
"The problem is, when the person was at home, the disease was spread to other family members.
"I believe the reason the person was not admitted to hospital, in the beginning, was because of the high number of infections. Every day, there are (about) 4,000 cases detected.
"If a patient is at home, their family members will be infected too. Which means, more people will get infected when in actuality, they should be quarantined separately from their family members," he wrote on his blog chedet.cc today.
The Langkawi Member of Parliament also highlighted the issues surrounding quarantine centres nationwide, after several photos showing improper arrangement of beds for Covid-19 patients going viral.
He also proposed for specialists to start having discussions with government officers as this will help Putrajaya resolve such issues.
"Based on the photos I received, the beds (at quarantine centres) are too close to one another and when a public figure goes to visit, patients will start gathering. This then leads to the spread of infections.
"Actually, there are many ways and practices that can reduce the number of infections. It is hoped that specialist doctors can discuss this with government officers.
"The Health director-general's (Tan Sri Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah) service is highly appreciated. But, this virus is too big to be handled by just one person."