Covid-19: Mapulaneng Hospital reopens after positive Covid case

The Mpumalanga Department of Health in Mpumalanga, together with labour unions, have decided to allow services to continue at Mapulaneng Hospital in the Bushbuckridge Local Municipality despite a positive case of Covid-19 identified at the hospital.

This decision follows the positive testing for Covid-19 of one of the health professionals at the hospital.

The official was tested on Friday, April 24, after being screened at the hospital entrance when reporting for work and was found to have a high temperature.

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Following the identified positive case, the dental unit, casualty and out-patient department were decontaminated.

The official who tested positive has since been taken to one of the isolation sites in the province.

The department hastily met with several labour unions to provide a brief on the status of the hospital.

It was decided that the hospital would carry on functioning because of the immediate decontamination processes that followed.

All remaining areas of the hospital were decontaminated, with the process being completed on April 30.

The dental unit has been fumigated but will remain closed as all the employees are currently in quarantine.

“The department has so far quarantined three staff members from the hospital, including the one who tested positive.

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“The district response team, responsible for tracing patients has so far traced 10 more staff members and an assessment of their health status is being done to determine whether they should be taken to quarantine sites,” said departmental spokesperson Dumisani Malamule.

MEC for health Sasekani Manzini has called for people to remain calm during this time.

“I want to reassure the community of Bushbuckridge that the department is monitoring the positive cases and their contacts very closely,” she said.

She reiterated that the community screening and testing will continue as it is helping to identify positive cases and prevent the further spread of the virus.

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