21 medical staff test positive for Covid-19
As of yesterday, 21 staff at the public hospital have tested positive for SARS-CoV-2, namely a doctor, six nurses, a security guard and 13 from the cleaning team. The latter 14 people were hired by third-party vendors.
Public health doctor Leong Iek Hou of Health Bureau (SSM) assured the public that no trace had been found to prove an intra-hospital outbreak.
Moreover, all staff at the public hospital and Health Centers are required to take SARS-CoV-2 rapid antigen test (RAT) every workday before work starts. They are also required to possess negative SARS-CoV-2 nucleic acid test (NAT) results from the previous 24 hours.
N95 or KN95 masks must be worn at all times unless a staff member needs to eat or drink. Eating and drinking will only be permitted in an independent area and individually. Staff are also not permitted to participate in any events in which mask wearing is not possible.
Those in high-risk positions, meanwhile, are all in close-loop management. They will be handled by the SSM daily during their commute between work and temporary residences. They are also required to dine individually.
On reports that pregnant medical staff have been assigned to work at frontline positions, the public health doctor denied the claim, saying that all pregnant medical staff were working in low-risk positions.
The public health doctor said that high-risk positions include those that will be in contact with positives, such as the Special A&E at the public hospital and the England Marina Hotel. “We will definitely not assign our pregnant colleagues to these positions,” the public health doctor emphasized.
In the best case, she added, pregnant staff will be put on holidays when there are enough other staff. Then, she appealed once again to the busy conditions of the SSM, hinting that the best-case scenario could not happen recently.
Therefore, she said, pregnant staff at SSM will be assigned to lower-risk positions
On the resumption of certain medical services after the two-week suspension, she said that the specialist medical team had, in the past two weeks, constantly kept up with their patients’ development.
Medicines have been distributed to patients who need them, the public health doctor said.
“While [undergoing] special treatment, such as obstetric examinations, which cannot be delayed, our medical team has been conducting these treatments for patients,” Leong said, adding that only non-emergency medical services had been halted in the last two weeks.
In addition, a patient’s family currently is not be allowed to visit the patient in the hospital. In response to a question about the matter, Leong pledged that she would refer the questions to the public hospital to alert them so as to find a resolution.
