02:39 PM
Wednesday 13 May 2020
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Books – Ahmed Jumaa:
The Ministry of Health and Population has circulated new instructions regarding the protocol for hospital treatment, with positive cases emerging between staff at the hospital or health facility.
According to a letter sent by Dr. Ehab Attia, director of the General Department of Infection Control, to health directorates at the level of the Republic, if a positive situation appears among the members of the staff, the infection control team in the facility alone will handle, provided that smears are not taken from those who are in contact with the case, and it is not permitted to isolate the contacts Whether home or work.
The letter referred to the purification of the places in which the positive case was discovered routinely, and there is no need to close the facility or the departments in which the case appeared except for the purification period only.
The letter stressed to all employees of the facility in general and those in contact with the case in particular, a self-assessment of themselves (a rise in temperature or the emergence of respiratory symptoms) and they must inform the employer if those symptoms appear to conduct the required examination and examinations, and in case of suspected infection, a smear is taken and is isolated at home .
The director of the health facility called for daily supervision of conducting the morning survey of all temperature-dependent workers, discovering respiratory symptoms, and ensuring that infection control instructions are followed in terms of intersection distances, preventing crowding anywhere and wearing appropriate personal condoms, and taking necessary actions with violators.
The letter stressed to all workers in all departments of the health facility, strict adherence to infection control instructions in the interest of themselves and their colleagues from infection, as statistics indicate that most cases of infection among staff are caused directly by community contact between staff in housing, workplaces and rest houses.
For its part, the Physicians’ Union criticized the new protocol for infection control among medical personnel, explaining that many doctors have lodged complaints about the instructions contained in it.
The Syndicate addressed President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi and Minister of Health Dr. Hala Zayed, the necessity of changing these instructions with the necessity to follow the utmost levels of ways to provide protection for the medical teams that lead the ranks in defense of the safety of the homeland and citizens.
The Medical Association described these instructions as “very dangerous”, because they mean that a member of the medical team carrying the infection (before symptoms appear) will be allowed to work and socialize with others, which will necessarily lead to a greater spread of infection among medical personnel, who in turn will transmit the infection to their families and citizens, Instead of the medical team member providing medical care to citizens, he himself will become a source of infection, which threatens a real medical disaster.
The union said that what was reported regarding a statistic indicating that most cases of infection among the staff were caused directly by societal contact, means trying to hold the medical team members responsible for their disease in a strange precedent that did not happen globally, while the WHO report stated that more 90% of medical team members are infected within health facilities, and it is recommended that immediate measures to prevent and control infection be expanded.
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