The Tribune

By KHRISNA RUSSELL

Tribune Chief Reporter

krussell@tribunemedia.net

A PUBLIC Hospitals Authority official has lamented vaccine hesitancy as an ongoing challenge for the healthcare sector, telling The Tribune more healthcare workers should want the jab having witnessed the effects of COVID-19.

While confirming a nurse attached to Princess Margaret Hospital’s maternity ward recently tested positive for the virus, PHA Managing Director Catherine Weech suggested that spread may be less of an issue if more health workers were vaccinated.

She was contacted yesterday after Bahamas Nurses Union President Amancha Williams claimed on Sunday that five nurses at the hospital were out sick because of COVID-19.

According to Ms Williams, two of those nurses were in hospital battling illness, while three were in quarantine. She said these nurses are assigned to the maternity ward.

She also said a nurse at Sandilands Rehabilitation Centre also died recently from the coronavirus.

Ms Weech said protocols were followed, in response to the BNU’s assertions.

“I know that one nurse tested positive on the (maternity) ward, and we followed the same protocols any time that we have a case where we have an exposure on the ward,” Ms Weech said yesterday.

“We reduce all new admissions until we’re able to settle the population that’s in the ward from any new persons coming in and getting exposed and then we test them periodically.

“That’s the protocol that we follow.”

Asked if all new admissions received COVID-19 testing, she said: “We do try to ensure that all patients coming into the hospital are tested before being placed on the ward, but you have to remember five-days is when the true story is told.”

Ensuring new patients are tested is not the only challenge, Ms Weech said.

“You do know also that we are struggling with healthcare providers who are hesitant to take the vaccine?

“… We are still trying to get 70 percent of the population vaccinated, until such time as healthcare workers get vaccinated - that would be brilliant if we get to that point - but I don’t think that we will because there is too much negative information out there.

“They are part of the general community. We can’t look at them and say they are different from others who are making the same decision. You would think that as healthcare workers they would, but they are not.

“You would think that persons who work with and see how these patients are coming in and they are. Today we have numbers of patients in our emergency room; the numbers aren’t going down, they are increasing. They see them and know them and know the negative outcome. In some cases some of their own colleagues have lost their lives. (So, you would think that) they would (get vaccinated) right, but they are not. I just don’t know what to say.”

In May, Health Minister Renward Wells revealed that less than 50 percent of healthcare workers had received the vaccine.

He said among all healthcare workers, clinical and non-clinical, 2,626 of 5,771 workers or 45.5 percent had been vaccinated.

It is likely by now that the number has increased.

On Sunday, Ms Williams voiced her concern over COVID-19 infections among nurses.

She said the nurses are pretty much on their own or the burden is on their families as their insurance is not the best.

Last year, a number of nurses died after being exposed to COVID-19. The union had an issue with the length of time the government was taking to compensate the families of the fallen nurses.

It is unknown if they were ever paid.

“We have five nurses out at PMH with COVID,” Ms Williams said Sunday. “Two of them are in hospital. They don’t have the best health insurance so their families have to deal with them. The air conditioner was off down there for four weeks.

“I keep saying bacteria, the spread of viruses, everything grows in heat. Body fluids are passing from one person to the next in that kind of environment, especially when you have no windows to open up to allow the air to circulate.”

The union president indicated that those nurses recently afflicted with the virus are very ill. It is also unknown how many of the nurses are vaccinated against COVID-19.

“The nurses are sick,” she said. “One is really, really not well. She is at Doctors Hospital. She is not well. We had a nurse (from Sandilands Rehabilitation Centre) that died. . .last week Thursday. We are having a memorial service this week. She will also be buried this week. I haven’t heard the minister say anything about that. Why didn’t he talk about that?

“These air condition systems have been out of service for a while, it’s just worse now that the summer has rolled in. I would say they have been out for about two months.”

The union president said the air conditioning system is unreliable as one day it comes on and the next day it is off for periods as long as three weeks.

She said it must be extremely uncomfortable to work in such an environment and also to be a maternity patient who has just had a C-section.

In a statement issued on Sunday, hospital officials acknowledged issues with PMH’s air conditioning system, adding that progress is underway regarding its repair in several wards.