Patients won’t be turned away – Savelugu Hospital assures

The Medical Superintendent at the Savelugu Hospital, Dr Sampson Abankwa, has said that patients who turn up at the hospital will not be turned away in spite of the fact that the facility was partially closed.

He said staff at the hospital had been asked not to turn people who called for treatment at the facility away, in spite of ongoing fumigation of the hospital premises.

Speaking to the Daily Graphic in Tamale yesterday, he said the decision to attend to patients was because not everyone might have heard of the facility’s partial closure. 

He said the partial closure of the hospital was not a strike  and therefore no patient should be turned away.

Fumigation

Dr Abankwa said the fumigation exercise, which should have taken place yesterday had been postponed to today because the company to carry out the activity had called to say it did not have enough chemicals for the exercise.

"I was informed by Zoomlion yesterday that it does not have enough chemicals for the fumigation exercise and therefore, the exercise has been pushed to today," he said.

Partial close-down/case count

Dr Abankwa said further that the partial close-down of the hospital might not last the entire 14 days as earlier scheduled.

"I am hoping that we get all outstanding results for samples taken for testing so we can review the situation. I am hopeful that the partial close-down shall not run the whole 14 days," he said.

COVID-19 situation

He said the number of staff members at the hospital who had tested positive for COVID-19 stood at 63.

He said the management of the hospital was awaiting results of other samples taken for testing.

Meanwhile, all the remaining 72 workers at the hospital have been asked to go into self-isolation and await their test results after 63 of their colleagues tested positive for the disease.

Background

The Daily Graphic of last Monday published that the Savelugu Municipal Hospital was to partially shut down for fumigation to avert a possible contamination of COVID-19.

According to the authorities at the hospital, the exercise had to be postponed to today as the company that had to undertake the exercise had informed them that it did not have enough chemicals to undertake the exercise as scheduled.