Uni­fied Health Sec­tor Work­ers’ Union gen­er­al sec­re­tary Rhea St John says nurs­ing staff are now wor­ried as some COVID-19 pa­tients are slip­ping through the sys­tem un­de­tect­ed.

In a few cas­es, she said they may have ex­posed nurs­es to the virus and some of them are now very scared.

Nurs­es yes­ter­day con­firmed that a What­sApp mes­sage shared a week ago, which stat­ed that med­ical staff on a ward at the San Fer­nan­do Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal fran­ti­cal­ly ran from their posts af­ter a pa­tient who was placed in a gen­er­al area test­ed pos­i­tive for the virus, was true.

St John ex­plained: “About two weeks ago, a pa­tient was trans­ferred from the Siparia Dis­trict Health Fa­cil­i­ty and he was not screened for COVID-19.

“He was sent to San Fer­nan­do in an am­bu­lance with an­oth­er pa­tient. He sub­se­quent­ly test­ed pos­i­tive for COVID-19. The oth­er pa­tient who came with him in the am­bu­lance was placed on a ward that was not iso­lat­ed and where he could have in­ter­act­ed with oth­er pa­tients and med­ical staff. He sub­se­quent­ly test­ed pos­i­tive and was trans­ferred.”

Staff al­so re­port­ed yes­ter­day that some pa­tients had pre­sent­ed with flu-like symp­toms but be­cause they did not fit the min­istry’s cri­te­ria of hav­ing a re­cent trav­el his­to­ry, their swabs that were sent to CARPHA were re­ject­ed.

St John said PPE was al­so lim­it­ed and staff has to sign each time they re­ceive stock. And while there were is­sues that man­age­ment could ad­dress, she said some cit­i­zens al­so put staff at risk by go­ing to the pub­lic health fa­cil­i­ties and not pro­vid­ing all the in­for­ma­tion.

“Ear­li­er this week, some­one went to the Clax­ton Bay Health Cen­tre with a cough. He sat in the mid­dle of every­one in the wait­ing area. Af­ter in­ter­act­ing with the staff, he re­vealed that he had a trav­el his­to­ry. He was cough­ing and want­ed to know what he had to do,” St John said. 

“The Min­istry of Health keeps send­ing out in­for­ma­tion that if you have a trav­el his­to­ry, you should self-quar­an­tine for 14 days af­ter re­turn­ing. If you feel you may have been ex­posed to COVID-19, call the hot­line. But a lot of peo­ple are com­ing to the health cen­tres and they’re not be­ing hon­est about their trav­el his­to­ry.”