Infectious Disease Centre Now Ready Says Health Minister; MSJMC Can Now Focus Other Patients

The Infectious Disease Centre is now ready to take on patients says Molwyn Joseph, Minister of Health.

The center is intended for all future Covid-19 patients in need of hospitalisation, the suspected cases and also as a site for quarantine.

The four million dollar facility is equipped with six high-tech hospital beds and 17 isolation rooms in total.

The centre is stocked with three of the country’s 40 ventilators.

Each coronavirus patient will be cared for by two nurses who will work four-hour shifts. The nurses’ station is fitted with CCTV screens enabling medics to observe each of the 17 rooms simultaneously, plus the perimeters of the building.

A total of 18 medics can stay onsite, to avoid transferring the infection to their families at home. The centre has internet connectivity throughout.

A separate area downstairs has been designated as the only place in the facility where anyone not working or being cared for can meet with staff.

Meanwhile, the Director of the Mount St. John Medical Centre (MSJMC), Dr. Albert Duncan, says restrictions at the country’s lone public hospital will be relaxed, so that operations can go back to some level of normalcy.

Dr. Duncan says that many changes have had to be made at the medical facility in order to ensure that patients and staff are protected from the COVID-19 virus.

With the apparent flattening of the curve, and only three coronavirus patients at the hospital, the focus can return to persons dealing with other ailments, he says.

However, certain protocols will remain in place to avoid an increase of cases at the medical facility.

The Director says the hospital had to be rearranged to accommodate those persons afflicted with the virus rather than those suffering from other diseases.

With the Infectious Disease Centre (IDC) finally being commissioned suspected and confirmed cases of the virus will be treated there. This will make it much easier to operate the emergency room at MSJMC, Duncan says.

Meanwhile, some of the services that were suspended as a result of the crisis will now be resumed, as hospital officials seek to serve other patients.

For the next two weeks, however, Dr. Duncan says that visiting hours will remain off limits. But this decision would likely be reviewed to accommodate up to two hours visitation a day.

On a note of caution, however, Dr. Duncan warns that the crisis is not over simply because the hospital is resuming some level of normal operations. There could be a resurgence of the virus when the country’s borders open, he says.

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