20 OOUTH laboratory staff, four others contract coronavirus in Ogun

Unconfirmed reports have it that about 20 medical laboratory staff of the Olabisi Onabanjo University Teaching Hospital (OOUTH), Sagamu, have contracted coronavirus.

It was also learnt that a family of four contracted the virus from their father who works in the hospital’s main laboratory.

Tribune Online gathered that staff of the laboratory went for COVID-19 test, following the death of a staff of the department while others are manifesting symptoms associated with the virus.

According to a source, results of the test conducted on the staff members showed that 20 out of the 70 staff working in the laboratory and the infected people have been advised to proceed on self-isolation.

He said, “When they started bringing the samples of Covid-19 patients to us last month, the Director of Medical Laboratory Services Department wrote the management demanding for those things to be put in place so that in the course of caring for others. We will also not be jeopardising our lives but the management did nothing. They are always quick to say there is no money, yet we know that we are generating money for the government.

“The management of the hospital was equally told to get a separate laboratory for Covid-19 test, just as it was done during the time of Ebola but this they also turned down.  Were it not for the ongoing strike of resident doctors of the hospital which has largely reduced considerably the number of patients that come to the hospital and make use of this main lab’s facilities, the number of infected people would have been extremely high.”

The source also informed the Nigerian Tribune that the Association of Medical Laboratory Scientists of Nigeria (AMLSN) OOUTH chapter, wrote a letter to the hospital management twice, asking for the discontinuation of COVID-19 test in the hospital’s main laboratory.

The Chief Medical Director of OOUTH, Dr Peter Adefuye, directed Tribune Online to seek for a reaction from the state Ministry of Health.

When contacted, the state commissioner for Health, Dr Tomi Coker, said her office was yet to receive any information as regards the matter.

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