THE STATE -run Eastern Visayas Regional Medical Center (EVRMC) temporarily stopped admitting new patients on Tuesday night after 18 health workers caught the coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid-19).
The indefinite closure will allow the Department of Health (DOH) to disinfect the emergency room and to do contact tracing.
“EVRMC will continue its operation, attending patients currently admitted. We just stopped receiving new patients since we see the emergency room as a possible source of the virus. In the meantime, we will check the manpower, building, and the systems,” DOH regional information officer John Paul Roca told reporters on Wednesday.
DOH regional director Minerva Molon said late Tuesday night that six doctors, five nurses, four nursing attendants, two radiology technologists, and an ambulance driver turned positive for Covid-19, based on the result released by Eastern Visayas Regional Covid-19 Testing Center in Tacloban City.
Aside from EVRMC, the DOH also reported four infected health workers at the local government-run Leyte Provincial Hospital in Palo, Leyte, including a nurse supervisor, nurse, nursing attendant, and a utility worker.
The newly-infected health workers are among the 59 new confirmed Covid-19 cases in Eastern Visayas reported by DOH on Tuesday night.
As of Wednesday morning, the region has 264 confirmed coronavirus patients.
EVRMC, the region’s referral hospital, is its biggest health facility with 500 beds.
Initially, the DOH has identified rooms at the old EVRMC as an isolation area. It is also working out to tap several hotels as isolation rooms for health workers who had close contacts with the infected hospital staff. (By Sarwell Meniano and Lizbeth Ann Abella)
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