FOUR people in Bulawayo including a nurse at Mpilo Central
Hospital and a patient who went to the health institution for treatment have
tested positive for Covid-19.
The nurse from Cowdray Park suburb was on Wednesday sent
home to self-isolate while the three others are admitted to the hospital. The
three were patients and one of them is a resident of Pumula suburb who went to
Mpilo with flu and after testing the results were Covid-19 positive. That
patient is admitted to the hospital as well.
Health workers at the public institution are being tested
to determine if any of them had been in close contact with those infected.
Mpilo acting chief executive officer Dr Solwayo Ngwenya
said the nurse is not showing any symptoms and members of the Bulawayo Rapid
Response team will make follow ups.
“At least four people tested positive for Covid-19 by PCR
testing which is diagnostic and this caused a lot of fear amongst staff.
However, we have managed to talk to health workers and emphasise the importance
of our continued commitment in the fight against coronavirus,” he said.
“At the moment there is one health worker that has been
sent home and others are patients who had come to the hospital. One person had
come in from the community and they had come for a minor illness and ended up
testing positive.”
Dr Ngwenya said there is a possibility that three people
admitted to Mpilo may spread the virus as ideally, they are supposed to be in
an isolation centre.
He said in terms of the Public Health Act, anyone with a
contagious disease should not come into contact with the public in health
institutions.
Dr Ngwenya said the hospital was in need of more personal
protective equipment (PPE) to ensure no health workers are infected.
“The challenge we have is since both our isolation centres
Ekusileni and Thorngrove are under rehabilitation, we cannot separate the
infected from members of the public. This means now we have to create a small
section within the hospital as the hospitals are not ready to take any patients
and this a recipe for disaster,” he added.
Dr Ngwenya said the behaviour of some members of the public
could result in the number of Covid-19 cases spiking.
“What is appearing is that the virus is spreading rapidly
in the community especially when one looks at the addresses of infected,” he
said.
“People have been so careless of late which is dangerous
considering their behaviour since the relaxation of the lockdown. There is
quite a lot of disregard of lockdown regulations for example social distancing
and wearing of masks and we are guaranteed of many new cases which will come as
a result of this.”
Tracing everyone who had been in touch with the nurse and
the three infected people will be a difficult task, according to Dr Ngwenya.
“We are doing all we can to trace how many more were in
contact with the infected but it will be difficult to find all of them as one
positive case may represent more than 10 infections which are yet to be
discovered,” he added.
“Those nurses will be asked to go home and self-quarantine
for at least 14 days and they can have monitoring and testing done while they
are at home.”
During Wednesday’s post-Cabinet briefing, the Minister of
Information, Publicity and Broadcasting Services Cde Monica Mutsvangwa
announced that Covid-19 cases had reached 132 countrywide.
According to the daily Ministry of Health and Child Care
tally also issued Wednesday, Bulawayo had three new cases, bringing the total
to 15 on that day.
Bulawayo provincial medical director Dr Welcome Mlilo said
there is a probability that the 132 cases recorded nationally include three of
the four Mpilo cases.
“We may see the fourth case appearing in statements that
are yet to come from the Ministry. I am sure that when they collated the
results, the fourth case had not yet been reported,” said Dr Mlilo.
Dr Ngwenya dismissed claims that nurses at the hospital had
walked away leaving patients stranded in protest after their colleague tested
Covid-19 positive.
He said nurses will undergo counselling and will be tested
to ascertain if there are more infections as they are frontline workers.
“We are equally scared but that does not mean we will close
the hospital as the public need our services. We will continue asking for more
PPE donations to ensure that our nurses and other health workers are kept safe
as they deliver their duties,” said Dr Ngwenya.
According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), nearly 1
000 nurses have been infected by Covid-19 in Africa alone.
The International Council of Nurses also approximates that
over 100 nurses have died due to the virus worldwide. Chronicle
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