A person at Middlemore Hospital in Auckland has tested positive for Covid-19 after being in a surgical ward with other patients, Deputy Prime Minister Grant Robertson has confirmed.
Robertson confirmed the case on Breakfast on Monday morning, saying that the person entered the hospital first on an unrelated matter and “not on the basis of Covid-19”.
Robertson did not deny that it is a disturbing situation and said more details will be shared at the 1pm briefing.
Three men unsuspectingly shared the room with this Covid positive case at the Edmund Hillary Block ward for nearly 8 hours.
The timeline is as under
Patient arrives into the room/ward 7am and was coughing and sneezing from the very start.
By 10:30am the nurses fully realised that this patient has Covid symptoms.
It took the staff another 5 hours before they could shift this patient out around 3:30pm and during all this time, the three existing patients in the room were freaking out as they were continually being exposed.
These three existing occupants were moved out by 5pm when the ward was emptied.
One of them is a 91-year-old who told 1 NEWS a fourth man was admitted around 7am on Sunday.
The elderly man, who does not want to be named, said the person was "sneezing and coughing and made us all worried".
He explained that at about 10:30am on Sunday "a few doctors came in to check him out".
Having overheard the conversation with the doctors, he says it became clear to everyone else in the room that the new arrival had Covid symptoms.
"They checked if he had a cough, he had a fever, could not smell or taste and quite frankly – his symptoms were very unpleasant," the elderly patient told 1 NEWS.
"The three of us in the room were horrified," he said.
"They gave him a test, we knew he’d been tested because we heard the conversation.
"He stayed in his bed and slept a lot."
The elderly patient said around 3:30pm two nurses in full PPE arrived and took the man away.
"At 5pm a nurse came in and said the room is going to be locked down. The ward seemed to empty out at about 3pm. Even though there were no visitors, everything went quiet on the ward."
The three patients remaining in the room expect to be tested in the next several days and say they've "been locked in".
“I’m 91 – I’m an ill man and seriously at risk. It was so damned obvious when we saw him in the room.
“I feel it’s negligence," he said.
"How did he get admitted into the Edmund Hillary block with three others let alone the fourth floor?"
The 91-year-old man and a 30-year-old man in the same room are both fully vaccinated, while 1 NEWS reported that the third patient is not.
The elderly man's daughter, is quoted by 1 NEWS saying “she could not believe Middlemore Hospital allowed the situation to happen”.
"This is a major stuff-up on Middlemore’s part. I have family world-wide and they are spitting bricks," she said.
“My family are concerned that this has had an effect on my father. This should never have happened. It’s a procedural issue.
“For a specialist to come in and do his rounds and pick it up, - it’s incompetence at the highest level.”
She said she could not comprehend why the hospital allowed the person who later tested Covid-positive to remain in a room with three other people while he was awaiting test results.
"There was at least 4-6 hours between the time he took to take the test and the time it took for it to become positive," she said her father had relayed.
Her father had been admitted to the ward on Friday afternoon after being transferred from the Emergency Department.
“They were sorting out all the nurses who had been in contact with him too. We overheard bits of them talking so we were getting worried.
“He shouldn’t have even been on this ward.
“They said we’ve got 48 hours for the virus to take effect, so maybe we’ll get tested tomorrow,” the 91 year old said.
“There’s no plan in place, there’s no rooms for us to go to - to get isolated, it sounds like they are making it up as they go.
“People should not be able to slip into a hospital with Covid."
He said the nurses were amazing there but, “weren’t ready for this, now they are suffering and they have to isolate too because they’ve been in contact”.
“I just don’t want this to happen to anyone else, they need to really up their game,” he said.
Staff at Middlemore Hospital have begun the process of identifying the patient's movements since arriving at the hospital, and a number of staff who may have been exposed are being asked to self-isolate.
Sources: 1 News, RNZ