RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

For three days a COVID-19 pos­i­tive pa­tient was kept on the sur­gi­cal ward of the San Fer­nan­do Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal pos­si­bly ex­pos­ing oth­er pa­tients and vis­i­tors to the dead­ly virus.

Af­ter con­cerns were raised, the man, who is wheel­chair-bound, was re­moved from the ward at 4 am on Mon­day.

A med­ical doc­tor who was do­ing rounds at the ward had been heard com­plain­ing about why a COVID-19 pos­i­tive pa­tient was be­ing kept on the sur­gi­cal ward.

It was then oth­er pa­tients were alert­ed.

Ward 6 Sur­gi­cal ward on the first floor has 18 pa­tients in two sec­tions and ac­com­mo­dates am­putees and oth­er pa­tients with co­mor­bidi­ties like di­a­betes, hy­per­ten­sion and heart ail­ments.

A source who re­quest­ed anonymi­ty said the pa­tients on the ward seemed obliv­i­ous to the man's con­di­tion even though his bed was screened off and a nurse in full PPE sat near a win­dow. Oth­er pa­tients were sep­a­rat­ed from the COVID-19 pos­i­tive pa­tient by a screen.

De­spite the screens, the COVID-19 pa­tient used the same wash­room as the oth­er pa­tients and would wheel him­self through the ward to get there be­fore re­turn­ing to the screened-off area.

"These screens can­not pre­vent any­one from be­com­ing ex­posed. On­ly the nurse was well pro­tect­ed with PPE but every­one else on the ward, at least 18 pa­tients plus all the vis­i­tors who came to see them have been ex­posed over the past three days," the source said.

Med­ical per­son­nel at the ward was up­set that the man was be­ing kept in a place where there were pa­tients with co-mor­bidi­ties.

A floor of the San Fer­nan­do Hos­pi­tal had been used to house COVID-19 pa­tients but this floor is sep­a­rate from any pub­lic area fre­quent­ed by oth­er non-COVID-19 pa­tients.

"We want to know why the au­thor­i­ties brought him to Ward 6. It is not fair to the oth­er pa­tients. There are oth­er fa­cil­i­ties where he could have been housed," a source added.

Se­nior gov­ern­ment of­fi­cials were con­tact­ed on Sun­day night and arrange­ments were made to trans­fer the pa­tient to a COVID fa­cil­i­ty.

Con­tact­ed for com­ment Min­is­ter of Health Ter­rence Deyals­ingh said, "Ask the CEO as I al­ways ad­vise. This is very im­por­tant and he is on-site."

Calls and mes­sages to the Chief Ex­ec­u­tive Of­fi­cer of the South­west Re­gion­al Health Au­thor­i­ty Dr Bri­an Ar­mour went unan­swered.