The management of Olabisi Onabanjo University Teaching Hospital, Sagamu, Ogun State, has said that eight of its laboratory workers tested positive after undergoing COVID-19 test.
The Chief Medical Director of the OOUTH, Dr. Peter Adefuye, who disclosed this on Wednesday while denying claims in some quarters that 20 laboratory workers of the institution tested positive for the virus, explained that the workers voluntarily did the test.
Adefuye noted that all the individuals had been asymptomatic and had been asked to self-isolate in line with the World Health Organisation and Nigeria Centre for Disease Control guidelines.
It was learnt that no fewer than 20 medical laboratory workers of the teaching hospital and a family of four had contracted the disease.
It was gathered from an impeccable source that a COVID-19 test for the staff was conducted on August 13 following the death of a worker from the department.
It was further gathered that many others were already ill and manifesting symptoms associated with the virus.
It was further learnt that the family of four reportedly contracted the viral disease from their father who was one of the staff working in the hospital’s main laboratory.
The source said the results of the test had started trickling in from last week Saturday to Tuesday and confirmed that 20 out of about 70 staff working in the medical laboratory of the hospital had the virus.
One of them had also reportedly infected his wife and three children.
This incident, it was gathered caused a great confusion in the teaching hospital, while those confirmed to be having the virus were said to have been told to proceed on self-isolation.
The source said, “When they started bringing the samples of COVID-19 patients to us last month, the Director of Medical Laboratory Services Department wrote the management, demanding those things to be put in place so that in the course of caring for others, we will also not be jeopardising our lives, but the management did nothing.
“Were it not for the ongoing strike of Resident Doctors of the hospital, which has largely reduced considerably the number of patients that come to the hospital and make use of these main lab facilities, the numbers of infected person would have been extremely high.”
But the OOUTH CMD, Dr Adefuye, berated those behind the attempt to dent the image of the present administration in Ogun State and rubbish the efforts of the hospital.
Adefuye said since the coronavirus pandemic was at the community stage in the country, anyone could contract it anywhere regardless of location, and not necessarily a hospital setting.
According to him, the fellows crying foul in order to make unwarranted claims have forgotten that the management cannot afford to close the gate of OOUTH because of COVID-19.
“Soldiers cannot for the sake of war refuse to go to battle. The same is applicable to health workers. This is the reason we are called heroes as life savers.
“After all, health workers understand that they do not wear anything more than PPE to attend to HIV/AIDS patients. So, why should some people in some quarters use this to embarrass the government and management of the hospital,” he queried.