Tygerberg hospital now has a quarantine section for patients with the coronavirus. The Health Professions Council of South Africa said on March 18 it had invoked a plan to limiting physical contact to prevent and reduce the impact of the outbreak.
PHOTO: Ian Landsberg/African News Agency
HPCSA invoke business continuity plan to reduce coronavirus spread
The HPCSA has acted to ensure that health workers are not overwhelmed by coronavirus cases and hope to stem its spread altogether.
Tygerberg hospital now has a quarantine section for patients with the coronavirus. The Health Professions Council of South Africa said on March 18 it had invoked a plan to limiting physical contact to prevent and reduce the impact of the outbreak.
PHOTO: Ian Landsberg/African News Agency
The Health Professions Council of South Africa said on Wednesday it had invoked its business continuity plan as a means of limiting physical contact to prevent and reduce the impact of Covid-19.
The government said the number of people with the novel coronavirus in South Africa had risen to 116 from 85 overnight, with several more instances of local transmission.
Working remotely
In its statement, the HPCSA said its continuity plan was aimed at ensuring that important services within the council continued functioning with as little disruption as possible.
“In principle it means that general staff members will be working from home except for the skeleton staff who are involved in essential services of the HPCSA,” it said.
Under the plan, provision has been made for registrations applications to be dropped off in boxes that are provided at the HPCSA for processing.
The HPCSA is a statutory regulator of healthcare professions in South Africa, which promotes healthcare, determines standards of education and training, and sets and maintains standards of ethical professional practice.
Online portal
On Wednesday it encouraged practitioners to refrain from coming to its premises to renew their registration, but rather to utilise an online renewal portal.
“The HPCSA is also concerned about the well – being of the practitioners during this time and will be further disseminating (information from) the Department of Health in collaboration with the National Institute of Communicable Disease Clinical guidelines for all health practitioners,” it added.
– African News Agency (ANA), Editing by Stella Mapenzauswa
