An­na-Lisa Paul

Six nurs­es as­signed to the Car­di­ol­o­gy Ward Num­ber 3 at the Er­ic Williams Med­ical Sci­ences Com­plex (EWM­SC), Mt Hope test­ed pos­i­tive for the COVID-19 virus on Wednes­day.

The in­fec­tions were con­firmed by Pres­i­dent of the T&T Reg­is­tered Nurs­es As­so­ci­a­tion (TTR­NA) Idi Stu­art.

Health of­fi­cials do not be­lieve the nurs­es con­tract­ed the virus in the hos­pi­tal but the Nurs­ing As­so­ci­a­tion is sug­gest­ing oth­er­wise.

The as­so­ci­a­tion is rais­ing con­cerns with the con­di­tions un­der which nurs­es work.

There are usu­al­ly be­tween nine and 12 reg­is­tered nurs­es as­signed to the ward.

Stu­art yes­ter­day claimed that COVID-19 pos­i­tive pa­tients are be­ing kept at the EWM­SC as there is no space left at the Cou­va Hos­pi­tal to ac­com­mo­date them.

Dur­ing an in­ter­view with Guardian Me­dia around 1 pm, he said ur­gent calls were com­ing from nurs­es at the EWM­SC who had been anx­ious­ly wait­ing on am­bu­lances to col­lect COVID-19 pos­i­tive pa­tients for trans­fer to the Cou­va Hos­pi­tal.

Stu­art re­vealed, “It gen­er­al­ly takes be­tween six and 24 hours to get con­firmed pos­i­tive pa­tients out, but over this last week, staff have be­gun to re­al­ize it was tak­ing a lit­tle longer, like two days to get the pa­tients out and now they are say­ing, we are call­ing the COVID Re­sponse Team to come for these pa­tients but are be­ing told they are out of space.”

“So cur­rent­ly, the EWM­SC is hous­ing per­sons right in the A&E De­part­ment and un­der the tents, in ex­cess of ten pa­tients. It is the same thing at Port-of-Spain Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal (POS­GH), and the same thing at the San­gre Grande Hos­pi­tal.”

He added, “Nurs­es in the A&E De­part­ment al­so have to be treat­ing these pa­tients.”

Af­ter weeks of re­ceiv­ing calls from mem­bers about the con­di­tions at the POS­GH and the San Fer­nan­do Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal (SFGH), Stu­art vis­it­ed both fa­cil­i­ties on Tues­day, and con­firmed, “I can tell the na­tion, it is not an ex­ag­ger­a­tion.”

Com­ment­ing on the lack of beds in the par­al­lel health­care sys­tem and the pro­ject­ed col­lapse of it with­in sev­en days if the record num­ber of cas­es con­tin­ue, the TTR­NA head said, “The on­ly thing left is to con­vert a num­ber of these hos­pi­tals in­to COVID fa­cil­i­ties them­selves.”

Stu­art claimed nurs­es were be­ing forced to op­er­ate in less than ide­al con­di­tions un­der the tents that have been set up at all the hos­pi­tals to triage pa­tients.

At the POS­GH, he said it was par­tic­u­lar­ly bad.

“There are wa­ter-logged boards for them to walk on, and the stench is un­bear­able some days as the uri­nals are lo­cat­ed to the back of them, and there is stag­nant wa­ter with mos­qui­toes.”

Claim­ing that symp­to­matic and asymp­to­matic pa­tients are mix­ing to­geth­er at this lo­ca­tion, he said peo­ple whose symp­toms are mild are be­ing told to go home and iso­late, but as many of them leave the fa­cil­i­ty to ac­cess pub­lic trans­port – it pos­es a pub­lic threat.

Stu­art cit­ed the chron­ic short­age of nurs­ing per­son­nel as one of the crip­pling fac­tors af­fect­ing the health­care sys­tem cur­rent­ly.