One of the two health workers of a private hospital in Tagbilaran City who tested positive for coronavirus disease (COVID) 2019 broke protocol and “escaped” from hospital quarantine to attend a birthday party, said Mayor Baba Yap.
Yap in a statement issued Sunday night said that the medical frontliner bolted quarantine and attended a party “outside the city” prior to the release of a polymerase chain reaction (PCR) test on Friday that yielded a positive result.
The health worker returned to the hospital after the birthday celebration.
“Ang isa, naay report nga ni break sa protocol og ni escape sa hospital before ni abot ang result and ni attend og party outside the city. Ni balik rapod siya sa hospital,” Yap said.
Considering that the health staff was working in a hospital that was handling a COVID-19 patient, he or she was supposed to be under strict quarantine even without the positive test result.
The mayor said that they are looking into possible charges which may be filed against the health worker.
“Gi tanaw na sa legal department kung unsa ang mga cases ang e file,” Yap said.
Although Yap did not mention which hospital employed the errant health worker, Ace Medical Center had earlier announced that two of its personnel who were in “direct” contact with the hospital’s lone COVID-19 patient also tested positive for the disease. They were the only officially recorded COVID-19 positive medical frontliners as of Monday morning.
ACE said that they placed all of the medical staff who were in contact with the COVID-19 positive patient under quarantine as precautionary measure even prior to the release of the results on Friday.
Meanwhile, the local government unit (LGU) of Panglao issued a statement on Saturday saying that they launched contact-tracing efforts in Barangay Bil-isan as one of the two COVID-19-positive health workers interacted “heavily” with some residents of the village during a party.
“This COVID-19 positive inidividual is not a resident of the Municipality of Panglao. However, his/her mother is momentarily residing at Barangay Bil-isan. The mother celebrated her birthday recently together with close associates including her child who is COVID-19 positive inidvidaul, hence inter-personal interactions occurred,” the Panglao LGU said.
The ACE Medical Center has not issued a statement regarding the incident.
The patient who was traced to have interacted with the two COVID-19 positive health workers meanwhile has recovered from the disease.
ACE Medical Center in a statement issued Saturday said that the patient was discharged from the hospital on the same day.