Hospital chief says coronavirus under wraps

Three more staff of the Queen Elizabeth Hospital (QEH) have come down with COVID-19 but the hospital chief said Wednesday there’s no evidence of person-to-person transmission there.

As the country continues to grapple with its second wave of the infectious disease, QEH Executive Director Juliette Bynoe-Sutherland has promised total transparency on the state of affairs at the main public health facility.

During an interview on Voice of Barbados radio, Bynoe-Sutherland confirmed Barbados TODAY reports of an infection within the Emergency Ambulance Service but added that two nurses from the Medical Intensive Care Unit (MICU), an emergency medical technician and a relief worker in housekeeping have since tested positive for the coronavirus. But she expressed confidence that an overwhelming stock of Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) and strict protocols at the hospital will, for the most part, keep the virus out.

Sutherland later told Barbados TODAY: “There are no cases of patients giving staff (or) staff giving patients (the virus), or anything like that. All of these are linked to clusters in the community and as (QEH infection control chief) Corey [Forde] would say to you, this is invariably how COVID comes in because even before COVID, nurses and doctors were masked, so when COVID comes into the hospital, it usually comes in through social contact.”

Rigorous contact tracing already ongoing within the lone general hospital has only intensified as the new cases came to light.

“At Emergency Medical Services in Wildey, the MICU here at the hospital, and the housekeeping department, investigations are ongoing into which shift or areas those persons are involved with as well. But we recognize that nurses and physicians…and our housekeeping staff are on the frontlines of the response,” added Bynoe-Sutherland.

On Monday evening, chair of Cabinet’s COVID-19 sub-committee, Senator Jerome Walcott, referred to two nurses from the MICU as well as the girlfriend of an EMT who attended the Boxing Day bus crawl. According to Senator Walcott, they were at the time awaiting test results, but he made no mention of the positive ambulance worker.

On Tuesday, Barbados TODAY reported that all EMT’s had been tested in connection with the case, but only those who came into direct contact with their positive colleague were asked to isolate pending the results. This raised concerns among some ambulance personnel, as it appeared to contradict best practice in relation to contact tracing.

In response to questions about management’s decision-making, the hospital executive director acknowledged that numerous test results were still pending, but maintained the decision to quarantine was based on the level of exposure.

On issues of transparency at the Martindale’s Road general hospital, Bynoe-Sutherland promised to level with the public at all times about the situation there.

She, however, explained that it would have been improper to disclose information about hospital cases with the press, without first breaking the news to the over 2500 employees under her charge. This, she said was done on Tuesday afternoon during a well-attended virtual staff meeting.

Bynoe-Sutherland declared: “A lack of transparency leads to mistrust, and people need to trust the hospital and to have confidence that we are managing it. The only thing we will not violate is patient confidentiality. That is the only thing.

“What I can assure the public, is that we have sufficient PPE, for the public and staff, to meet the needs of our nursing department and we have been at pains to ensure that all of our nursing staff are very clear on what the policies are with regard to staff exposure, visitors, restrictions on visitations and these are the kinds of issues that we are dealing with, to ensure that our nurses feel supported and that we are managing the risk in the broader community.”

(kareemsmith@barbadostoday.bb)