Staffers at West Demerara Regional Hospital worried
Regional Executive Officer, Jennifer Ferreira-Dougall (with face mask) meeting with staff gathered outside the West Demerara Regional Hospital on Friday (Tamica Garnett photo)
Regional Executive Officer, Jennifer Ferreira-Dougall (with face mask) meeting with staff gathered outside the West Demerara Regional Hospital on Friday (Tamica Garnett photo)

— after death of patient suspected to have COVID-19

STAFF of the West Demerara Regional Hospital, on Friday, refused to enter the hospital compound and assembled outside after a patient presenting symptoms of the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) died at the hospital on Wednesday.

The nurses of the hospital are calling for more protective gear, cleaning agents and to be paid a risk allowance.
According to reports, the man, who is from the West Coast Demerara, visited the hospital on Wednesday and was seen coughing up blood and had a fever. He is said to have developed the symptoms five days after visiting a friend from overseas. He died at approximately 13:00hrs at the hospital.

“It’s not confirmed that he’s positive but he came in with signs of it so right now, to be honest, we just praying for it to be negative but we waiting on the test result,” a hospital official said.

Efforts made to contact Public Health Minister, Volda Lawrence; Chief Medical Officer (CMO), Shamdeo Persaud and Deputy CMO, Karen Boyle, to confirm whether or not the patient was being tested proved futile.

Nurses who dealt with the patient were sent home and asked to self-isolate. The dead man’s wife, who was with him at the hospital, was also sent home.

However, the wife allegedly returned to the hospital and was standing among the persons gathered outside the hospital on Thursday. According to persons gathered, a woman that was there identified herself as the wife of the man who died. She later left the scene.
“We didn’t even know, is til she talk then we move. Until she said it was her husband, and when we move off then she disappeared,” one of the persons gathered noted.

Persons questioned why she was not placed in quarantine pending the results.
“At the said time she was in there [at the hospital] last night they were supposed to keep her. ‘Til you’re sure then you gon’ put her in quarantine? By then she done spread it,” one of the staff who refused to enter the compound said.

The staff had gathered outside of the hospital after they were met with closed gates when they turned up for work as early at 06:00hrs on Thursday.

According to reports, this was after the nurses for the screening area set up at the hospital did not turn up for work. A tent was set up at the hospital to create a screening area where persons seeking medical services at the hospital are first screened for symptoms of the virus.

However, when the gate was subsequently opened to the staff, they reportedly still refused to enter the compound.

When the Guyana Chronicle visited the scene on Wednesday morning, the staffers were still gathered on the street outside of the hospital.

Regional Executive Officer, Jennifer Ferreira-Dougall, subsequently came and met with the staff which included nurses, janitorial and some administration staff. The REO pledged to have the hospital sanitised and the staff promised to return to work on completion of the activity.

She also listened to the concerns of the staff and promised to have them addressed. She noted that as it pertains to the financial compensation for the staff, “that is being worked out”.

Government agencies are currently working with a restricted budget as no national budget has yet been passed, pending the impending results of the March 2 elections to facilitate the installation of a new National Assembly in Parliament.
In such cases, the law provides for government agencies to spend up to one twelfth of their budget from the previous year.

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