UCH doctors in self-isolation after being exposed to coronavirus patients

Some doctors of the University College Hospital (UCH), Ibadan, Oyo State capital have gone into self-isolation while others are being quarantined after they allegedly had contacts with some suspected coronavirus cases at the facility.

Summarily, the outpatient clinics including Medicine, Surgery and Children Out Patients Departments (OPD) have been closed, while the hospital’s accident and emergency department is still open with  healthcare workers including doctors and nurses rendering essential services.

The Chief Medical Director of the hospital, Prof. Jesse Otegbayo, said:“There are some of our doctors who are on self-isolation or quarantined because of exposure to suspected cases.

“We do not have to wait till we start seeing positive ones before we take appropriate actions.

“As the CMD, I have the sole responsibility to take care of and protect our staff from unnecessary infection and I just want to be proactive.

“As you are aware, the number of cases that are testing positive to COVID-19 is increasing and personally, I believe in prevention rather than all these curative approaches.’’

Commenting on how some countries were able to contain the virus, Otegbayo said they were able “to reduce the number of cases because they locked down early’’.

“Initially, we thought we should leave the outpatient department open but we realise that continuing to do that in the absence of enough materials to protect all our staff including our doctors, nurses and health attendants is not the best option, and the best option will be to lock this place down,” the CMD said.

He said the emergency services at the facility would remain open under strict compliance with preventive measures and standard infection control precautions.

“We have channels for taking care of those with emergencies and we are going to do that to the best of our abilities.

“I usually call the Accident and Emergency Department a madhouse, but we have had to put in some measures to ensure that is not just the staff, but also patients with emergencies are protected.

“We have a spillover tent outside our Accident and Emergency with measures that everyone who comes in maintains a safe distance from one another and these measures are necessary to ensure that we all work under the best condition in order to put in our best,” Otegbayo said.

On the reduction of number of patients on admission, he said the wards were being merged.

“As the chief executive of this hospital, I have the responsibility to see things for myself and I am just coming from a ward round and we have decided to close down some wards.

“We are collapsing our wards so that we reduce the number of patients on admission, those who are stable we are discharging because we need to sort out and limit the number of staff that will be exposed to any possible infection,” he explained.