The Ho Municipal Hospital is set to reopen its OPD and Emergency Units to the public after it was closed on Thursday, May 21, 2020, for disinfection.
The Units were closed after a staff of the hospital and a police recruit tested positive for COVID-19.
This will be the second time a unit of a hospital is being closed for disinfection in the Volta Region.
According to the Deputy Volta Regional Director of Health in charge of Public Health, Senanu Kwasi Dzokoto the closure of the Units is part of protocols to control the spread of the pandemic.
“Per the routine surveillance going in the Ho Municipal Hospital as well in the past 72 hours they picked up two cases and one happens to be a staff. So, immediately, you have to assess the level of exposure to the other staff who are at the hospital and then to the hospital itself, so it becomes necessary that you take immediate action. Some of the actions that you have to take in the interest of public safety include screening all who have come into close contact, whether it is close or remote it is so necessary that you screen and test and so that is being done.”
“In addition to that, we have closed down the emergency and the OPD because the person in question had some interaction in all those places. It is extremely necessary that we close it down as a precautionary measure and then you disinfect. Disinfection usually takes about 24 hours and so that has been done and all things being equal the place will be opened up for full-service delivery in the course of the day,” he added.
Background
The Ho Municipal Hospital in the Volta Region on Thursday, May 21, 2020, shut down two of its departments temporarily for disinfection after it was exposed to a person with COVID-19.
According to sources close to the hospital, the exercise was to ensure the Accident and Emergency and the Out Patient Departments were safe for both staff and clients.
Apart from the temporary shutdown of the departments, about 33 staff who were also exposed to the COVID-19 patients are in self-quarantine while their samples are being tested for the virus.
The staff include 16 health personnel from the Accident and Emergency Department and 17 from the OPD.
The source at the hospital noted that the facility received two COVID-19 cases last Wednesday, May 20, 2020.
One of them came with an emergency situation and was quickly attended to and stabilised by the staff of the Accident and Emergency Centre.
The client’s samples were taken for COVID-19 testing due to some of the symptoms exhibited.
The other patient had earlier been treated for malaria by the facility and had returned for a review.
The results from the COVID-19 testing centre of the University of Health and Allied Sciences (UHAS) showed the patients were all positive.
This brings the number of health personnel suspected to be exposed to COVID-19 and hence on quarantine in the Volta Regional capital alone to 75.
42 are at the Ho Teaching Hospital and 33 at the Ho Municipal Hospital.
