Belize City Council Donates Testing Booths to Medical Facilities Across the Old Capital
Hubert Pipersburgh was the first casualty of the COVID-19 here in Belize. The fifty-four-year-old resident of San Ignacio worked at City Hall in Belize City and expired two days after testing positive for the virus. He died at the Karl Heusner Memorial Hospital on April fifth. Pipersburgh had a large circle of friends and his colleagues are paying tribute to the man who served at City Hall. Today, the council gifted four testing booths, including two to the K.H.M.H. Here is News Five’s Duane Moody with a report.
Duane Moody, Reporting
Today, the Belize City Council donated testing booths for medical facilities across the Old Capital. By the end of the day today, four facilities, including the Karl Heusner Memorial Hospital had the air-conditioned, fifty by forty-eight wooden structure installed on their respective compounds. It will now be used to test suspect COVID-19 patients. The first stop was at the K.H.M.H. where just outside the Accident and Emergency Wing a designated area had been identified.
Bernard Wagner
Bernard Wagner, Belize City Mayor
“I was able to make contact with some donors cause we felt as a city we needed to contribute to help the whole effort in this COVID-19 pandemic. We actually lost one of our workers here and we felt compelled that we had to help in this area, especially in the testing area, because we believe that maybe if things were much better then, what happened could probably never occur. So instead of moping about, we said that we wanted to ensure that we provide testing booths. So we are giving two of these testing booths to K.H.M.H., one of Cleopatra White and one to Matron Roberts as well.”
The monetary value of the booths is two thousand dollars each, but is priceless when it comes to the level of safety that it provides for frontline workers while carrying out an essential service. Unit Manager of Accident and Emergency, Casilda Bowman is also the manager of the isolation critical care unit of the K.H.M.H. Nurse Bowman explains the importance of this donation for her staff.
Casilda Bowman
Nurse Casilda Bowman, Isolation Critical Care Unit, K.H.M.H.
“What we are trying to do is from the point of entry, to identify persons who are considered as a suspected case. We will examine and do the testing out here so it decreases the exposure to the rest of the staff. So our first point of testing is here; we have a nurse that is identified to do a triage of all the patients who come into the emergency department. They then determine if the person has symptoms of COVID-19 and they would place them here. A physician then is identified and also will come and do the procedure of testing the patient for COVID-19.”
The booth provides a shield for the medical officer who swabs the patient. That sample is then carefully managed and taken to the central lab at the adjacent compound for testing. Now if the person is critical, the patient will be placed inside four isolated rooms within the Accident and Emergency Wing until his or her results are returned. If positive, that patient will then be transferred to the designated isolation critical care unit for COVID-19.
Renaldo Siu
Dr. Renaldo Siu, Head, Accident & Emergency, K.H.M.H.
“We will be focusing on COVID-19 that comes along with an emergency issue that we need to deal with. If the suspected COVID-19 patient is stable, then we have Cleopatra White, the testing centre. But if they have a medical condition that requires A&E management, then we will deal with it.”
Nurse Casilda Bowman
“Every patient that comes in, it doesn’t matter the mode of transportation, you are assessed and checked for any symptoms of COVID-19. It doesn’t matter how you come in, you have to be checked first. We do it through a triage system where we ask you several questions that meet the case definition and based on that then the nurse decides that this patient can come up. This one step in trying to reduce the amount of patients who go in there and expose the staff, but we also have our nurses prepared and assume that everybody is a suspected case until we know that they are not. So they have to wear their protective gars, everybody wears a mask. A patient comes in from this area with a mask, so that decreases the transmission.”
The Cleopatra White Polyclinic on Princess Margaret Drive has been designated by the Central Health Region as testing area for persons with respiratory complications, one of the symptoms of COVID-19. Regional Manager Melinda Guerra says that the donation is timely.
Melinda Guerra
Melinda Guerra, Regional Health Manager, Central Health Region
“It is going to assist our medical officers and nurse in being able to do more swabs, nasal swabs for suspected cases of COVID-19 so it comes in very handy. Since the COVID-19 response started in January, we have been at the forefront of ensuring that we carry out all the necessary investigations, the screenings. We move on to another step in the prevention and control where we carry out investigation of contact tracing and mapping exercises. And at this facility any time we have any swabs to be done, we would refer our patients to this clinic where the doctors will do the swabbing. The nurses do the screening and the doctors do the swabbing.”
Duane Moody for News Five.
