Home health care services on rise in pandemic: Experts

The COVID-19 pandemic has not onlyforced many professionals to work from home, but also pushedpeople suffering from various ailments to opt for home healthcare services instead of going to hospitals for treatment.

This is just a beginning and the home health caresystem has a lot to offer in future, say experts.

Patients who have to undergo dialysis, physiotherapyand chemotherapy are preferring health care services at homeand many are also taking telemedicine consultations, they say.

Talking to PTI, Dr Avinash Ignatius, a nephrologistand transplant physician at a well-known Pune-based hospital,said those suffering from kidney-related problems now have anoption of ''peritoneal dialysis'' which can be done at home.

''In this case, a hemodialysis machine along with allsupport systems is installed at home. A dialysis techniciangoes there and does the patient's dialysis,'' he said.

He said tele-consultation with doctors is also pickingup among those suffering from chronic kidney ailments.

''Medical instruments like automated blood pressuremonitors, weighing scales, pulse oximeter are now available athome. Those who have recently undergone kidney transplantsneed not come to visit a hospital for frequent follow-ups.

''By using these instruments at home, they can informabout their health condition to the doctor,'' he said.

City resident Sudha Shrivastava, 68, has recentlystarted taking dialysis at home and she finds it morecomfortable than going to hospital every time.

''In the last six months, I have visited hospital onlyonce. I have got the entire set up of home dialysis. I informmy doctor about health condition via tele-consultation,'' shesaid.

''Taking dialysis at home has been comfortable and lessrisky in recent times when hospitals were seeing an influxCOVID-19 patients,'' she added.

Oncologist Minish Jain, who offers consultation atvarious hospitals in Pune, said taking chemotherapy at home isstill not popular in India.

But, in certain kind of cancers, treatments andchemotherapy can be given at home, he said.

''In this pandemic time, people are afraid to visithospitals and those who can afford, have started takingchemotherapy at home,'' he said.

But, hospital stay is still cheaper in India comparedto taking the treatment at home. So, home health care is beingpreferred only by those who can afford it, he added.

Dr Ajay Kothari, a consultant orthopaedic surgeon ata private hospital here, said patients are now preferringrobotic and non-invasive surgeries as these require lesshospital stay, hence chances of contracting COVID-19 infection(due to frequent visits outside) are also less.

''During the lockdown, when people suffering fromchronic orthopaedic issues were not able to visit hospital,home-based physiotherapy services helped them a lot,'' saidRupal Sancheti, the director of a home-based physiotherapystart-up.

(This story has not been edited by Devdiscourse staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)