COVID-19

Doctors' contacts identified and quarantined

May 5, 2021 4:18 am

The Health Ministry has identified 98 contacts so far of the two doctors who tested positive for COVID-19 on Monday.

Permanent Secretary for Health, Dr. James Fong says after the announcement they had launched an immediate intensive contact tracing exercise.

Dr. Fong says the two doctors closely work together and so they’re quite sure one passed the virus to the other.

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“Many of these contacts unsurprisingly are their colleagues who work in Lautoka hospital including doctors and nurses. As per protocol, these Fijians must be entered into two weeks of quarantine. This has seriously affected our staffing capacity, particularly for the medical and surgical services. We have redeployed staff from other facilities to cover these gaps.”

He says this will be a very demanding two weeks of shift for staff at the Lautoka Hospital but the Ministry is confident they can still manage.

Meanwhile, the PS has also highlighted the issue of releasing personal details regarding COVID patients.

The Ministry he adds will never reveal personal or confidential details.

“It’s good that they have plenty of friends around that have called them and consoled them throughout the night. Otherwise, they were very depressed. Those who are sharing their identity should stop. That does not mean I won’t try. I want to appeal to people to think twice before they share this sort of private information. It reflects poorly on your values and your respect for your fellow Fijian. The question you should ask yourself is would you like your personal information to be shared if you or your loved ones contacted the Coronavirus.”

The PS says it is close to impossible to try and stop people from posting information on social media.