Panic as Mpumalanga nurses continue working while sick with Covid-19

Anxiety has gripped the Naas community in Mpumalanga, after it emerged that a nurse had continued interacting with staff and patients while awaiting their Covid-19 test results, which came back positive three days later.

The health department in the province yesterday shut the Naas Community Health Centre for fumigation and activated the national Covid-19 tracking and tracing protocols, to find everyone who had come into close contact with the nurse. The nurse did not inform the facility that they had themselves tested positive and the department was only notified by the national health laboratory that there was a positive case in the facility.

In another incident, results of an official at the Boschfontein clinic in Malelane have returned positive for Covid-19 on the last day of their 14-day quarantine, which the department has blamed on the initial results backlog.

Fellow staff members were alarmed when the health worker arrived for work though they had tested positive, with two of their colleagues subsequently testing positive and the department being forced to close and fumigate the clinic yesterday.

This could be a potential blow for the province that has the third lowest Covid-19 cases, in the backdrop of claims about nurses forced to work while awaiting their results and concerns around infections among nurses.

The DA in the province has said that there were complaints from nurses at the Boschfontein clinic in the province’s Ehlanzeni district, that they were forced to work while awaiting results after coming into direct contact with a positive case.

According to the party’s spokesperson on health in the province, Jane Sithole, healthcare workers at the clinic were tested for Covid-19 on Monday after a nurse tested positive last Friday.

“…while these nurses are still in isolation, following direct contact with the nurse who had tested positive, they were allegedly asked to come to work (yesterday) or face not being paid for not reporting for duty,” she said.

Sithole said during their oversight visit at the clinic yesterday, the three healthcare workers who were told to report to work looked visibly sick and one was coughing badly.

“The healthcare workers confirmed that they were called … by their senior manager to report for work … while nurses at this clinic are allegedly threatened with a no work no pay scenario, one has to wonder how many healthcare workers in the province find themselves in a similar situation?” she asked.

The Democratic Nurses Organisation of SA (DENOSA) has also raised concerns over the rapid increase in the number of their members infected with Covid-19, and have threatened to withdraw the remaining members if the health department did not hire more nurses.

The organisation lamented that most of their members were infected with Covid-19 and were in quarantine, with those remaining on duty carrying the heavy workload and being overworked.

“We are calling on the department to hire more nurses urgently. The rise of the new infections amongst staff members indicates failure by employer to ensure that our members are not overwhelmed … the employer must note that if the department can’t hire more nurses, we will be forced to withdraw the little that is remaining,” Mzwandile Shongwe, secretary in Mpumalanga, said in a statement.

He added that they have discovered that their members who are on quarantine need counselling services urgently and called on the department to organise this therapy “for our members to counter the trauma they are facing on a daily basis”

Health Department’s response:

The Mpumalanga department of health spokesperson, Dumisani Malamule, said the Naas and Boschfontein clinics were closed yesterday for fumigating and that the department was already in the process of tracing the contacts.

Regarding the Naas clinic incident, Malamule explained that the nurse went to test without informing the facility and that they were not stopped because the facility was unaware that they were awaiting results.

“…that is why the immediate we picked it up, that there was a positive case, we told the person to quarantine and we are busy with tracing contacts,” he said.

Malamule said staff members who came into close contact with the nurse have been identified and, tested and isolated.

He said they would have to bring nurses from other facilities to assist the community, if needs be, when the centre reopens.

Malamule said the same process of tracking and tracing process would be followed with the Boschfontein clinic incident.

“People are screened, their details taken down when they visit a clinic. We will be able to contact all those who visited the clinic during those specific days. If they test positive, we then check who they have come into contact,” he said.

Malamule refuted claims that nurses were forced to work while awaiting their results, saying they followed the national guidelines and did not make up their own guidelines.

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