KUCHING, Jan 22 ― Sarawak Health director Dr Chin Zin Hing is advising Mirians to not visit Miri Hospital unless completely necessary after 20 of its healthcare workers tested positive for Covid-19 recently.
He said because of the 20 confirmed cases from the hospital staff, they had to quarantine almost 200 other close contact staff.
“This measure has affected many of the services in the Miri Hospital where some of the clinics there had to be suspended,” he said.
“As of today we have 20 staff in Miri Hospital who are confirmed to have been infected with Covid-19. A majority of them are from the Emergency Department. Because of that, when we have to quarantine those close contacts, so almost 200 of the staff had to be quarantined. We also have a lot of patients in the wards.
“Because of that, we want to control the number of people coming to the hospital. That’s why for some clinics (in Miri Hospital) we have to suspend some of their services, but the drugs (medication for patients) we will make sure to supply to them continuously. We have various means to make sure that the drugs will continue to be supplied,” said Dr Chin.
He was responding to reporters asking measures taken by the Health Department after some 20 health workers at the Miri Hospital tested positive for Covid-19.
Dr Chin however assured that the Miri Hospital emergency services and other essential services will continue to function.
“We are trying to minimise the number of people coming to the hospital, but the emergency service is still there. We will try to maintain the essentials.
“So for the clinics, a lot of them are by appointments so we suspended some of the clinics, but once the situation is ok we will put it (the appointments) back,” he said. ― Borneo Post
