New Telegraph

20 OOUTH lab scientists, doctors, nurses contract coronavirus

At least 20 medical laboratory staff, doctors and nurses have tested positive for coronavirus at the Olabisi Onabanjo University Teaching Hospital (OOUTH) Sagamu, Ogun State. An official of the hospital, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, told New Telegraph yesterday that, an official of the Laboratory Department had died of an illness suspected to be COVID-19, prompting others to go for coronavirus test last Friday. According to him, some staff of the department have already started showing symptoms of coronavirus before going for the test. It was also learnt that four members of a family contracted the virus from their father who works at the hospital’s main laboratory.

The source added that the results of the tests showed that 20 of the about 70 staff working in the Medical Laboratory of the hospital had been confirmed positive for the virus while one of them had also infected his wife and three children. This incident was said to have caused anxiety in the teaching hospital while those confirmed to be having the virus have been told to go into self-isolation. The source blamed the management of the hospital for the incident. He said: “The OOUTH management under Dr. Peter Adefuye should be blamed for whatever happened to the laboratory staff because of their refusal to provide us with sufficient Personal Protective Equipment (PPEs) that we need to have as health workers having direct dealing with the samples of Covid- 19 patients.

“When they started bringing the samples of COVID-19 patients to us last month, the Director of Medical Laboratory Services Depart ment 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.

They are always quick to say there is no money, yet we know that we are generating money for the government.” When New Telegraph called Adefuye on the phone to confirm the incident, he said “they (staff) tested positive just like anybody in the community is testing positive. There is no outbreak, doctors have tested positive, nurses are testing positive”. When asked to give the exact number of those had tested positive, he said, “more than 20 have tested and we have assisted them”. The state Commissioner for Health, Dr. Tomi Coker, said she had not received any report of such in her office.

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