GEORGE TOWN: The resurgence of Covid-19 has heightened fear among Penangites to the extent that a hospital employee was barred from entering his apartment unit when he returned home from work last Friday.
But that was not all he had to deal with. Early this week, his daughter was refused entry to her class at a local college and now he has also been prohibited from stepping into the gym.
The staff of the Adventist Hospital in Pulau Tikus said he had not been in close contact with a patient who tested positive for Covid-19 last week.
The female diabetic patient had been admitted for a leg wound and she was also screened for Covid-19.
The two doctors who treated her and about 50 nurses who worked at the ward where she was staying have been put in quarantine despite testing negative.
The hospital staff, who declined to be named, said when he finished work last Friday, he returned to his apartment, also in Pulau Tikus, but was stopped at the gate by the building management supervisor and security personnel, and was told that he was not allowed entry because the patient at the hospital had tested positive for Covid-19.
“I was forced to spend the night at my mother’s place (in another part of the island),” he told theSun yesterday.
He said he was only allowed home the next day after he pleaded with the building management, explaining he had not been in close contact with the patient.
“This is a form of discrimination,” he said. “Some people are overreacting to the situation.”
It is learned that all the nurses and doctors at the hospital had tested negative on their first and second tests.
They are waiting for a third round of screening as required under the standard operating procedures (SOP) set by the Health Ministry.
A spokesman said the hospital had become a victim of fake news due to that single positive case.
Over the weekend, the hospital was closed for sanitisation in areas where the patient was tested and confirmed positive, but activities have since returned to normal, the spokesman said.
He pointed out the patient had not shown any symptoms initially, but only tested positive on her second visit four days later.
“It can happen at any hospital. We have now taken more precautions,” he said.
The patient is related to an index case in the Tawar cluster in Kedah.
She has since been transferred to the Penang Hospital and placed in an isolation ward.
State executive councillor Phee Boon Poh urged authorities to expand their awareness and educational programmes about Covid-19 as there remains a high level of ignorance among people.
A cardiologist said some quarters have begun to interpret the SOP “differently” from what was intended by public health authorities, adding there was a need to generate better comprehension about the virus.
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