12 Palms staffers quarantined following COVID-19 death of resident

May 08, 2020 News

Twelve staffers of the Palms Geriatric Home have been placed in mandatory quarantine by officials attached the Ministry of Public Health (MoPH) as a result of the latest COVID-19 related death.
Director of Social Services, Wentworth Tanner under whose purview the Palms operates, confirmed yesterday that a 64-year-old bedridden male resident of the facility had died of the disease.
The elderly man died at the Georgetown Public Hospital Corporation last Friday shortly after he was admitted.

One of the country’s COVID-19 deaths was a resident of the Palms Geriatric Facility.

In the meantime, the Social Services Director noted that as recommended by health workers, several staffers of the facility have been quarantined.
Kaieteur News understands too that the ward where the victim once occupied comprises of about 24 other bedridden persons who have also been placed in quarantine.
Tanner said the Palms has since undergone a thorough sanitization exercise and there will be full screening of the caregivers before they enter the compound.
He said while there is no certain information as to how the patient contracted the virus, the facility had suspended all visits to the Palms since March 30.
“So there were no outside visitors coming into the facility. Added to that, the caregivers are also instructed to wear masks and gloves on each shift. They are provided with four masks each per shift,” Tanner explained further.
The Director noted nonetheless that the incident is quite alarming given the fact that the Palms hosts about 194 in-house elderly residents.
“We hope that the Health Ministry will help bring some clarity to the situation because what is scary is that a person can be asymptomatic and have the disease yet transfer it to other persons who are vulnerable.”
Similarly, in the daily live-streamed update on Guyana’s COVID -19 situations, Chief Medical Officer (CMO), Dr. Shamdeo Persaud, stressed that testing is critical to uncover asymptomatic cases of the virus.
“As I said [before], testing is critical if we are to uncover the asymptomatic cases to assist in reducing the number of illnesses and deaths due to the severe form of the disease.”
According to the CMO, Guyana’s fatality rate stands at 10.8 percent per the population whereas the WHO Global fatality rate is 4 percent.
“Of all positive cases, children account for 5.4 percent, adults 82 percent and the elderly 12.6 percent. Even though 52 percent of our confirmed cases were males, they account for 80 percent of COVID-19 deaths in Guyana.
This simply means that we must detect those in our communities showing no symptoms but require medical intervention.”
Sharing further insight into the asymptomatic cases, Dr. Persaud noted that from information provided globally, many healthy younger persons infected with COVID-19 do not display the usual symptoms.
“These persons can continue to transmit the virus to other vulnerable persons in our society by not practising control measures such as hand hygiene, physical distancing and the using of masks.”
At the same time, Dr. Persaud continued to appeal to people to come forward if they have been in contact with a positive case or experience any of the symptoms associated with COVID-19.
“We are pleading with you to access our mobile units positioned at various points in the city as well as the COVID-19 sites on the East Coast and the East Bank Demerara. Please call the hotline for information on the location of the mobile units.”
The CMO, once again, stressed to the male population to be responsible about adhering to the curfew hours and physical distancing in order to contain the spread of COVID -19.
“I wish to reinforce that as breadwinners of the family, you put yourself at unnecessary risk and jeopardize the life and livelihood of your families by not complying with the recommended measures.”
Speaking in a global context, Dr. Persaud noted that Guyana is listed among the Americas where cases of the disease have been climbing.
“The USA and Brazil occupy the first and second position respectively with the highest numbers of positive cases, globally.
I want to draw your attention to Brazil which has 107,780 cases with 7,321 deaths. For Guyana, this simply means that our bordering regions with Brazil are at additional risk of contracting the Coronavirus Disease, and so all residents especially of Region 9 are asked to be extremely vigilant and comply with all control measures,” he added.
According to the CMO, as of yesterday, Guyana had no new cases; an additional 22 tests were done bringing the total number of persons tested to 736 with the total number of confirmed cases remaining at 93.
The number of persons recovered thus far has increased to 34, and the deaths remain at 10. There are three persons in our COVID-19 Intensive Care Unit (ICU), six in our institutional quarantine and 49 in isolation.
To date, the total number of patients seen in the COVID-19 ICU is 26.