MANILA, Philippines — Twenty-two nurses of the Makati Medical Center (MMC) are now under home-quarantine after they were exposed to patients with coronavirus disease (COVID-19), its medical director said.
“As of our last tally, I still have around 22 nurses in home quarantine,” MMC’s medical director and interim COO Dr. Saturnino Javier said in an interview on ABS-CBN News Channel on Thursday.
Other nurses have already been cleared to report for work after the duration of their observation has lapsed, Javier added.
“We initially want them to quarantine for 14 days, although there had been some guidelines already coming out (that) if you don’t develop any symptoms for example between five to seven days and your level of exposure is low to moderate, you may be cleared to go back to work but you will still be wearing a mask,” he said.
“We cannot strictly enforce the 14 days otherwise mauubusan tayo ng health personnel (we’ll run out of health personnel),” he added.
Pimentel’s visit
Meanwhile, Javier said that around six to eight of the hospital’s health personnel were exposed to Senator Aquilino “Koko” Pimentel III who was at the MMC for his wife’s scheduled cesarean delivery when he got a call from the Research Institute of Tropical Medicine (RITM) confirming that he tested positive for COVID-19.
In a strongly-worded statement on Wednesday, the MMC denounced what it called “irresponsible and reckless” actions of the senator for breaching infection control protocols.
MMC also slammed Pimentel for violating the strict guidelines of social distancing, quarantine, and hygiene; thus, creating more problems for the rapidly depleting healthcare sector as the pandemic grows.
“There could be more because we now have to determine the second layer of staff who came into contact with those people so these are all going to take some time to fully determine the contacts who have been exposed and who needs to be traced,” Javier went on.