Staff and visitors to wear special ‘fluid-resistant’ masks at COVID-hit hospital says health chief

Southern Health Trust Chief Executive Shane Devlin revealed 17 members of staff had tested positive for COVID in three clusters with a further 51 members of staff also self-isolating.

Mr Devlin said a total of 15 patients had tested positive for the virus, 14 of them on the Haematology Ward which is now closed to further admissions.

Yesterday (Wednesday) the hospital cancelled orthopaedic surgery. Mr Devlin said: “One of our orthopaedic theatres is not able to function fully and therefore there was an impact this week on patients as we had to cancel some orthopaedic surgery today.”

Almost two weeks ago the first cluster was declared in the Emergency Department with three members of staff testing positive and 21 staff isolating however Mr Devlin said that department is ‘pretty much back to normal’ with staff making their way back to work and the Trust has launched an investigation.

The Trust has restricted all visiting to Craigavon Hospital except for exceptional circumstances such as end of life care and those accompanying women to scans or birthing partners.

Mr Devlin revealed that all those entering the Craigavon site, including those not involved in medical care such as maintenance, IT and clerical staff, will be asked to wear ‘fluid-resistant sheild masks’.

“In Haematology, we have 16 members of staff who are positive,” said Mr Devlin explaining that it involves a range of staff. “If you think about a ward, it is not just nurses, it could be doctors, nurses, ward clerk, porters it is basically a team of people.

“Once we have a positive member of staff, we then go into contact tracing to understand who else they may have been in close contact with and would not have been in PPE for that contact. Often people on the ward, they are wearing PPE. But we are looking for contacts they would have had outside the ward environment.

“In Haematology, that is a total of 40.

“As you can imagine that is a lot of staff. That is 16 members of staff with COVID and then 40 members of staff who are not COVID positive but we need to make sure they are safe and they stay safe and they stay isolated,” said Mr Devlin.

That is a total of 56 members of staff including the 16 who are COVID positive, who are off work and isolating.

“In medicine we have one member of staff who is positive and, for the moment, we have 11 contacts for that person,” said Mr Devlin confirming that is a total of 12 who are isolating.

“That is 56 in Haematology and 12 in the medical ward. We are looking at 68 people out and, of that total, 17 are positive and the rest are isolating.

“That gives you an indication of the impact that COVID can have on a workforce. Clearly what we must do is protect our staff. Therefore if a person is COVID positive we really will make sure that other contacts are quarantined even if they are not COVID positive. It is important that we follow all the guidance.”

Mr Devlin said he was not aware how many people were affected outside the Trust’s staff as that is in the domain of the Public Health Agency which would undertake that level of contact tracing.

Asked about the number of patients affected, Mr Devlin said; “In total in Haematology there were 14 patients testing positive for COVID-19. On the medical ward we have one patient who is COVID positive. There is no one who is drastically unwell from that group.”

Asked if any patients had ended up in Intensive Care or on a ventilator, Mr Devlin said: “Well not COVID related. I don’t know the details of all the haematology patients but by the very nature of the illness they are unwell so if we were to trace those patients over the next weeks and months they may become very unwell but it won’t be COVID related. These are immuno-compromised patients to begin with. I don’t know the clinical details but I do know that those who are in-patients are remaining well. But I think it is only fair to say that over a period of time, they are an unwell group of patients, not because of COVID but haematology is a serious speciality.”

Mr Devlin also spoke about the new visiting arrangements. “The really important part for us is to reduce the footfall on site. With fewer people there will be fewer opportunities of sharing the virus.

“Visiting is no longer allowed. There are some small exceptions. Obviously end of life care, People will come in at that point and obviously they will be wearing appropriate PPE and also for scans and delivery partners obviously.

“That is what we have introduced today (Wednesday) and it is important because we need to make sure we keep our patients safe and our staff safe but also our community safe. I don’t want lots of people walking in and out of the hospital which could be a harm to them and also a harm to others.”

Asked about staff outside the medical units such as maintenance and clerical staff, Mr Devlin said: “Our hospital was split into green, amber and red areas. We took the decision yesterday (Tuesday) that there will no longer be green areas. What we will do for a period of time is, anyone who comes on site will have to wear a fluid-resistant sheild mask. It is not a face-covering but a type of mask that we would use in our amber area. It looks like a face-covering but it gives you a further level of protection.

“We are asking all people coming on to our site, such as a maintenance person, an IT person or someone working in an office, we are asking them to wear masks until we come out of this. Obviously any visitors, of which will be limited, will also be masked.

“Previously we would have had staff, such as in maintenance, who were not wearing masks but would have been able to socially distance. We are now asking that all staff to wear the appropriate mask which the Trust is providing.”

When asked about a possible reduction in services due to the clusters, Mr Devlin said; “Every day we do a risk assessment to make sure we have the staff available to deliver services. I can’t prempt or answer that question because I don’t know.”

He explained that losing 20 staff in the ED was manageable as it was out of a rota of around 200 staff in that department, however an outbreak in a smaller service might have a greater impact.

“There was an impact today (Wednesday). One of our orthopaedic theatres is not able to function fully and therefore there was an impact this week on patients as we had to cancel some orthopaedic surgery today.”

Mr Devlin said the Trust is in the middle of their ‘three month rebuild plan’. “We are building up to getting our elective services back up and running again,” he said, adding that certain services will be ‘very challenging’ such as ENT.

“We have done over 150,000 virtual clinics in the last four months using Zoom and other mediums to try to deal with a lot of things that can be done. There will be appointments that we will struggle to fulfil.”

Mr Devlin said he was unable to give an overall figure for the cost of agency staff employed as a direct result of COVID as he didn’t have it in front of him. “We are monitoring how much we spend in COVID and that is something that the Department of Health underscores. COVID is an additional expense for every public body and private company as well. There will be a considerable bill, there is no doubt about that.”

Mr Devlin said that those who need care should still come to the hospital. “We have isolated any outbreaks very quickly and made sure that our services are safe. There is no additional risk to coming to Craigavon as we have identified and isolated it,” said Mr Devlin adding that they had closed Haematology to admissions so they wouldn’t be putting any patients in that situation.

“We are still fully PPEd up and still fully safe. I would implore people that if they need our help, please seek it,” he said.

Asked about speculation the source of some of the COVID outbreaks were linked to staff attending a party, Mr Devlin said: “I think it is really important that this isn’t a witchhunt. What I would say is that we know the index cases, which are the first cases that we have and we are working from that. We are not looking into parties and that sort of thing.”

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