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Fear in UBTH over blunder in Coronavirus test results

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Fear in UBTH over blunder in Coronavirus test results

Health workers at the University of Benin Teaching Hospital, UBTH, Edo State are battling fear over alleged medical blunder made by some physicians at the hospital in the result of the tests conducted on two suspected COVID-19 patients sent to Irrua Specialist Teaching Hospital, ISTH, in Edo State.

At present, the hospital is in total confusion, following the death of one of the patients who later tested positive to COVID-19 along with the others, after testing negative to the virus earlier. Currently, doctors, health workers and patients have been potentially exposed to the risk of COVID-19 infection.

A source close to the hospital who spoke to Vanguard, said as it was now only a chain of tracking that has to be done to properly arrest the situation at the hospital. The source told Vanguard that the physicians failed to wait for official transmission of the result of the suspected COVID-19 patients before commencing treatment on the said patients. How negative test results turned positive.

The source gave an account of what transpired: “It is unfortunate that people want things to be done through the back door, which sometimes lead to problems at the end of the day.

“They sent their samples but before their result could be transmitted officially, the attending physician in UBTH now called his friend in   Irrua because he was there before and wanted to know whether the result was positive or negative, so he could proceed with the treatment.

“He leveraged on that relationship and called the doctor in Irrua who also manages Lassa fever screenings. Apparently, he wanted to proceed on treatment for other conditions because the first patient had chronic renal condition and the second one has bronchial pneumonia.

“So they wanted to proceed to manage the conditions.   He did not know that what he meant was that only the samples tested so far were negative, and on this basis, the patients were moved from the isolation ward to the main ward, while the patient with chronic renal disease was sent to dialysis.

“That further exposed those who did the dialysis. He went for dialysis and also the Intensive Care Unit, ICU, because he was unconscious; he eventually gave up.

“The one that was taken to the ward was also exposed to other patients. When the remaining samples from Benin were done, which included the two from UBTH, it was then they gathered that the one from UBTH could not be done the previous day and the two samples came out positive.

“This   threw the whole system into confusion. So when they got the information at UBTH, they now quickly took the patients back to isolation. That was what happened.”

The source regretted that all the doctors, nurses and nurse assistants who were exposed, are now in isolation, as others are being tracked. “But the problem now is how to properly trace all the contacts to be able to arrest the situation. It is a chain of tracking that has to be done to properly arrest the situation there.

“It is most unfortunate because it also bothers on medical negligence. I will be surprised if nobody goes down in terms of disciplinary action. This is a very serious thing; they have endangered the lives of many people,” the source added.

Lamenting that the hospital management failed to provide Personal Protective Equipment, PPEs, especially at the point of entry, he said: “Although that has been largely done now but it is a little late. So that was what actually happened from inside information. It is not that they mixed one result with another.

“There is a lot of pressure at the Irrua hospital. Many of the people working at the centre have been pulled out to Abuja.  The manpower is not there. The government has even pulled out some people from the centre to Abuja.  The panel investigation is ongoing already,’’ the source said.

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