Health Minister Dr Frank Anthony on Tuesday confirmed that there has been a mild outbreak of COVID-19 at the Georgetown Public Hospital Corporation (GPHC) but assured the nation that a contingency plan is being formulated in case other health workers test positive for the virus.
INews was told that more than 100 persons, including doctors and other medical staff, have so far tested positive. Tests are continuing for other staffers.
“There are a number of persons who have tested positive, both doctors and other medical staff. We have been constantly monitoring and we have taken mitigation measures so it has not had a big impact so far on service delivery,” the Health Minister said..
“But if more and more people get sick well then obviously it’s going to have an impact, but, so far, with the persons who got sick, we’re monitoring them. Most of them are either asymptomatic or mildly symptomatic and we expect that they will return to work shortly,” the Health Minister added.
He was at the time responding to questions during his daily update on the COVID-19 situation in the country.
At this time, it is unclear how many of the infected employees are unvaccinated. The Minister also did not disclose the exact number of persons who are affected.
When contacted, he refused to answer the questions thrown at him in connection to the outbreak at the medical facility.
It was only on Sunday that Dr Anthony met with the GPHC Management to discuss additional measures to be taken to protect both patients and staff from the Omicron variant.
Efforts to contact officials from the GPHC and other health personnel for more information on this matter proved futile.
