Allegation of delayed Covid-19 test of exposed medical personnel at SOMCH

A woman was diagnosed with Covid-19 days on Sunday night, days after giving birth to a child at Sylhet MAG Osmani Medical College Hospital last Friday.

As the doctors, nurses and other staff members of the gynaecology and anaesthesiology departments were exposed to the patient, 44 of them were taken in quarantine.

Twenty-two of them were tested the next day and though they were all negative, an outrage over delayed response and negligence of authority was apparent in Facebook post of the head of the department of gynaecology and obstetrics.

Dr Nasrin Akter, also a professor of the department, in her post updated on Tuesday night, alleged that they had to wait 16-36 hours to be tested for Covid-19 after being exposed.

In the post, she also claimed that the doctors were humiliated, asked to leave their posts and denied of tests in first place by the highest authorities of the hospital.

While talking to The Daily Star, the associate professor said, "We came to know in the evening that the patient we were treating was diagnosed with Covid-19 and everyone was traumatised due to the exposure. After requesting again and again till next afternoon, they [hospital authorities] finally decided to test some of the exposed doctors, nurses and staff members."

"It's good that mostly exposed doctors, nurses and staff members tested negative, but who will take responsibility of the trauma my colleagues had to experience due to delayed testing? Moreover, the negligence, misbehaviour and inefficiency of handling such situation -- who would be accountable?" the doctor asked.

The infected woman, a 25-year-old, was referred to Sylhet MAG Osmani Medical College Hospital from Sunamganj Sadar Hospital with severe complexities and she gave birth to a child on Friday evening.

Though the patient did not show any common symptoms of Covid-19 but atypical symptoms like diarrhoea, expert physicians of the ward suspected her.

On Saturday, her sample was collected, tested at the hospital's laboratory on Sunday and confirmed her infection publicly on Monday, though the doctors came to know Sunday evening.

Dr Himangshu Lal Roy, deputy director of the hospital, said, "After getting confirmation of the positive result; 19 doctors, 14 nurses and 11 other staff members were ordered for strict home quarantine. Twenty-two of them were tested the next day and resulted negative. Samples of the rest were collected on Wednesday and sent for test."

Brigadier General Dr Younusur Rahman, director of the hospital, said, "After the patient was diagnosed Covid-19 positive, the doctors, nurses and staff of the ward started panicking and that's natural."

"We are lacking technicians to collect samples and that was the reason of the delay. But we collected samples, half of the mostly exposed came out negative in the test, others are also being tested and now someone might have trying to bring an issue out of it," he said.