COVID-19 Lockdowns Lead to Severe Health Complications for Chronic Disease Patients

All chronic patients have suffered from the restrictions imposed by confinement. These measures have forced patients to stay at home and take their illness in stride due to lack of care and medical consultations, reports the daily Al Ahdath Al Maghribia.

According to some specialists and medical associations, the pandemic has been fatal to patients who have succumbed to cardiac, cancer, diabetic and other complications. In this regard, the Moroccan Society of Medical Sciences (SMSM) recently sent a letter to the Ministry of Health asking it to launch a joint awareness campaign aimed at encouraging citizens to visit their attending physician.

According to the same daily, the health status of patients recently seen by doctors in the public and private sectors has deteriorated considerably during confinement, as they have refrained from calling on their doctor.

For the president of the Moroccan Network for the Defense of the Right to Health, Ali Lotfi, the concentration of all efforts on the fight against the pandemic has seriously affected the national strategy for the treatment of chronic diseases. Added to this is the fact that patients were convinced that hospitals and medical offices represented serious risks of contamination. Faced with this critical clinical picture, several specialist doctors have called for the immediate resumption of consultations and treatment of these patients, during this period of mitigation of the epidemic crisis.