MASAKA– Masaka Regional Referral Hospital health workers are living with fear after a 27-year-old man with suspected Covid-19 symptoms died on Sunday, shortly after he was admitted to the hospital’s emergency unit.
According to Dr. Edwin Okello, the in-charge of the Covid emergency unit at the hospital, the patient who arrived from Kinoni trading centre in Lwengo district, 15kms away from Masaka city, had developed hypertension and symptoms of COVID-19.
”By the time this man arrived at the hospital emergency unit, he had covid-19 symptoms like fever, cough, and difficulty in breathing, but when he was put under intensive care, doctors took the Rapid Diagnostic Tests [RDT] tests which proved negative,” Dr. Okello said.
The man died Sunday night as doctors were waiting to take the Polymerase Chain Reaction [PCR] tests the following morning.
He said after the outbreak of covid-19 in 2019, Masaka hospital registered many cases of covid-19 patients especially businessmen and truck drivers from the Mutukula-Tanzania border.
”We received many truck drivers and businessmen patients from Tanzania,” he said.
Dr. Okello revealed that they lost about 169 patients in the second wave compared to 28 patients who died in the first wave and in the third wave, only 15 people lost their lives because of too much attention by the ministry of health and response to the pandemic.
He said patients with critical conditions were treated at the hospital covid-19 facility while those with mild symptoms managed their symptoms at their homes and they healed.
For the new wave of covid-19 cases that have been reported in some parts of the country like in Kasese, Okello said, Masaka hospital is more prepared to handle the covid-19 patients who might be brought to the hospital.
He said an alternative shelter for testing covid-19 and a 14-bed capacity facility for both male and female patients have been put in place.
He said the only problem, which the hospital is likely to face, is manpower. ”Many of the workers who were working at the hospital covid-19 emergence unit were laid off,” Dr. Okello said.
He said during the first, second, and third waves of covid-19, the hospital emergency unit had 64 workers.
Dr. Okello has advised people to observe Standard Operating Procedures [SOPs] and should always go for covid-19 vaccination to minimize the spread of Covid-19 which has started to re-emerge in different parts of the country.
”Mutukula-Tanzania border is very near to Masaka and the only thing is to advise people to follow the SOPs because it is very difficult to control the people who go and come from the border,” he said.
Meanwhile, the district health departments in Kyotera district where Mutukula border is located and other districts of Rakai, Lwengo, Lyantonde, Kalungu, Sembabule, Bukomansimbi, Kalangala islands and Masaka in the greater Masaka region, started outreach vaccination exercise which is still going on.
Despite, the new cases of Covis-19 in Kasese, the cumulative cases as of the virus as of June 4, 2022, as published by the Ministry of Health, stand at 165,700. The breakdown of the new cases is as follows: 35 alerts and Contacts: Kampala [26], Wakiso [7], and Kiruhura [2].
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