Panic as three Masaka Hospital staff test positive for COVID-19

Dr Onyachi (R) while discharging patients who had recovered from COVID-19 last month. PHOTO/ MALIK FAHAD JJINGO

What you need to know:

Currently, 16 patients are undergoing treatment at the hospital.

MASAKA- Panic has overwhelmed Masaka Regional Referral Hospital after three of the hospital staff tested positive for COVID-19.

According to the hospital director, Dr Nathan Onyachi, the health workers are among the 32 who were tested for COVID-19. 

The victims are attached to the Outpatient Department of the hospital.

Naturally, Dr Onyachi, said where people expect less risk, they become complacent and some end up getting infected.

“When Ebola broke out in Uganda some years ago, some health workers who contracted Ebola at St. Mary’s Lacor Hospital were not even working at the Ebola Treatment Centre. So, it is the same scenario we are faced with here,” he said on Monday. 

He said that big number of health workers attached to the hospital’s COVID-19 Treatment Centre tested negative.

The team handled a police officer who succumbed to COVID-19 last week.

The male police officer attached to Kyawagonya Police Station in Lwengo District.

“Everyone is at risk if they don’t follow the Standard Operating Procedures. “We are getting reports that many people wear masks while entering the hospital and they remove them as soon as they access the compound which puts our health workers at a risk,” he said. 

So far, the hospital has handled 73 COVID-19 cases. The majority have since been treated and discharged.

Currently, 16 COVID-19 patients are undergoing treatment at the hospital.