The South­west Re­gion­al Health Au­thor­i­ty is deny­ing that any staff, vis­i­tor or pa­tient had been ex­posed to COVID-19 at the San Fer­nan­do Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal.

This fol­lows com­plaints that a COVID-19 pos­i­tive pa­tient had been kept for three days at Ward 6 sur­gi­cal at the hos­pi­tal, be­fore be­ing trans­ferred to a COVID fa­cil­i­ty at 4 am on Mon­day.

In a state­ment, the Au­thor­i­ty said, ” The SWRHA wish­es to re­it­er­ate that the dis­pen­sa­tion of care to each pa­tient is in ac­cor­dance to the high­est stan­dards and con­sis­tent with In­fec­tion & Pre­ven­tion Con­trol pro­to­cols. “

In so do­ing, the Au­thor­i­ty said, ” Any pa­tient af­ter ad­mis­sion con­firmed as COVID-19 pos­i­tive is prompt­ly iso­lat­ed and im­me­di­ate­ly trans­ferred to a des­ig­nat­ed par­al­lel fa­cil­i­ty, once any emer­gency life or limb-threat­en­ing is­sues are first at­tend­ed to.”

The Au­thor­i­ty added, “No staff, pa­tient or vis­i­tor have been ex­posed to the COVID-19 virus, while at our in­sti­tu­tion. As is cus­tom­ary, the Au­thor­i­ty will al­so com­mu­ni­cate and pro­vide guid­ance to any pa­tient who has ex­pressed con­cerns about any re­lat­ed mat­ter.”
Over the week­end, Guardian Me­dia was re­li­ably in­formed that for three days a COVID-19 pos­i­tive pa­tient was kept on the sur­gi­cal ward of the San Fer­nan­do Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal.
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.”

Re­porter: Rhad­hi­ca Sookraj