There is palpable tension at the Olabisi Onabanjo University Teaching Hospital (OOUTH) Sagamu, Ogun state as no fewer than 20 medical laboratory staff at the hospital have tested positive for COVID-19.
It was also gathered that, a family of four contracted the virus from their father who worked at the hospital’s main laboratory.
Blueprint gathered that a staff of the hospital who also worked at the laboratory department had died of an illness suspected to be COVID-19 last week.
This, according to a staff of the hospital who spoke to Blueprint under the condition of anonymity prompted other staff of the institution to go for COVID-19 test.
The source added that some staff had already started showing symptoms of Coronavirus since last Friday.
He added that, the results of the tests showed that, 20 out of about 70 staff working in the medical laboratory of the hospital had been confirmed positive for the virus while one of them had also infected his wife and three children.
This incident was said to have cause great confusion in the teaching hospital while those confirmed to be having the virus have been told to proceed on self isolation.
The hospital staff blamed the management of the hospital for the incident, accusing them of insensitivity to the plights of the medical laboratory staff dealing with COVID-19 patients.
He said “the OOUTH management under Dr Peter Adefuye should be blamed for whatever happened to the laboratory staff because of their refusal to provide us with sufficient Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) that we needed to have as health workers having direct dealing with the samples of Covid-19 patients.
“When they started bringing the samples of COVID-19 patients to us last month, the Director of Medical Laboratory Services Department wrote the management demanding for those things to be put in place so that in the course of caring for others, we will also not be jeopardising our lives but the management did nothing, they are always quick to say there is no money, yet we know that we are generating money for the government.
“The management of the hospital were equally told to get a separate laboratory for COVID-19 test just as it was done during the time of Ebola but this they also turned down. Were it not for the ongoing strike of Resident Doctors of the hospital which has largely reduce considerably the number of patients that come to the hospital and make use of this main Lab facilities, the numbers of infected person would have been extremely high.”
Blueprint also gathered that the Association of Medical Laboratory Scientists of Nigeria (AMLSN) OOUTH chapter has equally written the management of the hospital twice demanding the discontinued processing of Covid-19 samples at the main laboratory because of its attendant risk, setting up of a different lab for Covid-19 test and ensure that the lab workers were provided with sufficient personal protective kits.
The Chief Medical Director of the hospital, Dr Peter Adefuye reportedly did nothing on the concerns of the lab workers as expressed in the two letters and that if they like they can as well join the resident doctors of the hospital who have been on strike for about about two months now.
When contacted, Dr. Adefuye confirmed the development, saying “They (staff) tested positive just like anybody in the community is testing positive. There is no outbreak, doctors have tested positive, nurses are testing positive.
When asked to give the exact number of those had tested positive, he said, ” More than 20 have tested and we have assisted them.
On her part, the state commissioner for Health, Dr. Tomi Coker, said she had not received any report of such in her office.
