
MONROVIA – The John F. Kennedy Memorial Medical Center (JFK) has confirmed the hospital has been hit by two positive COVID-19 cases, prompting the temporary closure of the Liberia-Japan Friendship Maternity Hospital.
Report by Lennart Dodoo, [email protected]
JFK earlier this month suspended all of its outpatient department services and opened its doors only for emergency cases.
An April 16 announcement by the management of the JFK stated, “Disinfection of the Maternity hospital is mandatory due to positive COVID-19 testing conducted on two maternity health workers, both of whom have been taken to the treatment center. The JFK is complying with MOH and NPHIL guidelines for contact tracing and surveillance procedures.”
The hospital did not name the those infected or how many people they may have come into contact with.
However, FrontPageAfrica gathered that one of the infected persons is a foreign consultant, an Obstetrician, who works with the maternity center. A nurse also tested positive for the virus.
Both of them initially tested negative to COVID-19 but later began to show symptoms a few days after the test, prompting a second test which was positive.
This, according to sources within the JFK, has sparked fear among doctors and health workers at the hospital as couple had interacted with several persons being discovering they were positive.
FrontPageAfrica gathered that one of the infected persons is a foreign consultant, an Obstetrician, who works with the maternity center. A nurse also tested positive for the virus.
Some health workers had complained about the inadequate supply of personal protective equipment which remains a major challenge and now exposing more health workers to the virus.
St. Joseph Catholic Hospital confirmed to FrontPageAfrica that its Human Resource Manager and an intern doctor tested positive for COVID-19.
Brother Peter Dawoh, the administrator said though the hospital has measures in place to avert the Ebola experience in which nine of its senior staff died, the hospital has not been supplied with any PPE. He said, they have been using PPE which were kept since the end of the Ebola epidemic.
Liberia currently has 73 confirmed cases. At least six persons have died of coronavirus in Liberia, according to the National Public Health Institute of Liberia.
EDITOR’S NOTE: This story earlier reported that it was a Nigerian doctor serving as a consultant and his wife that tested positive for COVID-19 at the hospital. We, however, wish to clarify that his wife tested negative. The second person is a nurse working at the hospital. We apologize for any inconvenience this might have caused.