At least one pri­vate med­ical in­sti­tu­tion has up­dat­ed its mask-wear­ing pol­i­cy fol­low­ing the Gov­ern­ment’s de­ci­sion to end the mask man­date at med­ical fa­cil­i­ties around the coun­try.

On Sun­day, the Health Min­istry an­nounced that the COVID-19 or­der that re­mained at pub­lic and pri­vate hos­pi­tals and clin­ics would no longer be in ef­fect from mid­night on Ju­ly 31.

Yes­ter­day, in a post to its so­cial me­dia page, the Gulf View Med­ical Cen­tre ad­vised that de­spite the an­nounce­ment from the Health Min­istry out­pa­tient nurs­es would be asked to wear masks dur­ing their shifts, while nurs­ery nurs­es had been ad­vised to con­tin­ue wear­ing masks while at­tend­ing to new­borns. The med­ical cen­tre al­so not­ed that peo­ple with flu-like symp­toms and signs would be asked to wear a mask.

“Pa­tients and vis­i­tors will be po­lite­ly asked to wear a mask if they have any flu-like symp­toms, how­ev­er if they refuse nurs­es should wear a mask when in con­tact with said pa­tients and vis­i­tors,” the cen­tre stat­ed.

When con­tact­ed by Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day, Man­ag­ing Di­rec­tor of Med­ical As­so­ciates Dr Ar­joon Narayans­ingh said he agreed with the full lift­ing of the mask-wear­ing pol­i­cy.

Last Ju­ly, Health Min­is­ter Ter­rence Deyals­ingh lift­ed most of the mask man­date how­ev­er, mem­bers of the pub­lic vis­it­ing health clin­ics, den­tal clin­ics and hos­pi­tals were still re­quired to wear masks.

Mean­while, head of the Reg­is­tered Nurs­es As­so­ci­a­tion Idi Stu­art said with the mask man­date now a thing of the past, the Gov­ern­ment should redi­rect its re­sources to aug­ment arms of the health sec­tor.

“We hope the min­is­ter utilis­es this op­por­tu­ni­ty now that the pan­dem­ic is be­hind us to fo­cus crit­i­cal­ly on is­sues of pa­tient to staff ra­tio and en­sur­ing there is safe staffing in our na­tion’s hos­pi­tals. This is a re­al prob­lem with­in our na­tion’s in­sti­tu­tions much more se­ri­ous than the pan­dem­ic ever was,” he said.

Stu­art added that come Fri­day he will be lead­ing a march through the streets of Port-of-Spain to high­light sev­er­al is­sues plagu­ing the health sec­tor.