IPOH, April 13 ― The booth may look simple but it makes Covid-19 screening faster and with almost no direct contact between the healthcare worker and patient.
Perak emergency services head Dr Adi Osman said cleaning the swabbing booth was also easy.
The way the booth works is by having the healthcare worker inside it and they then reach out to the patient who is outside the booth via arm length gloves to take nose and throat swabs.
“We need to disinfect the front part of the booth after each swab and thus less waiting time between patients.
“There is a waiting time of between 30 minutes and 40 minutes between each patient when the procedure is done inside a room as time is needed to clean the room after each swab,” said Dr Adi who designed the booth.
He added that it was also a cost-saving measure.
“We saved one to two full personal protective equipment (PPE) per swab.”
(The almost no-contact between medical staff and patient means they do not need to change PPE after each swab).
Dr Adi said the Hospital Raja Permaisuri Tuanku Bainun (HRPB) Covid Centre is doing between 50 to 100 swabs per day and thus the number of PPE saved is significant.
It was also not easy to buy PPE in current times, he added.
On Friday, Dr Adi received two swabbing booths on behalf of HRPB from a group, Setenang and Friends.
Lai Jen Hong, 26 who is Setenang's coordinator for its Covid 19 project, said each booth costs RM2,000.
He added that Setenang, headed by Jerry Khoo, wanted to help medical personnel fight the Covid 19 war.
HRPB where Dr Adi is a specialist is the first hospital to receive the booths from Setenang.
Lai said they were grateful to Dr Adi and doctors at the hospital for their support for this project despite their tight schedule.
He said interior designer Simon Lee volunteered to come up with the structure based on Dr Adi's design and specifications.
The booths were manufactured by Mayang Meriah Enterprise, an aluminium fabricator in Ipoh.
Lai said the joint effort saw the entire project materialised within a week.
South Korea is said to be the first country using similar booths and the concept is catching up, said Lai.
