Clinics not ready for testing: Nurse

National

By LULU MARK
CLINICS in the National Capital District who have been tasked to carry out swabbing for people having Covid-19 or flu-like symptoms have not been properly equipped, a nurse says.
Tokarara Clinic manager Sister Olive Oini Ume said while the Covid-19 response team had been pushing them for triage and swabbing at the clinic, no standard operating procedure had been issued to them.
She said it was important to ensure that there was compliance with standards which would turn the staff and patients.
She said the swabbing booth and the triage areas were not up to standard.
She stressed that nurses knew about what was lacking.
“The clinics are managed by nurses and majority of the staff are nurses and community health workers,” she said.
“One of the major issues is although we are managers at our level, we are not involved in the Covid-19 response team.
“All the nurses at the management level should be in the decision-making automatically to make decisions and ensure that there is a standard.”
She said the surveillance team were asked to do swabbing but they were pushing nurses to do swabbing as well.
“Swabbing should be done at one spot only because if a test comes positive, the clinics will go on lockdown.”
She said the referral pathway was not clear because when the surveillance team was called to assist, it took hours to get a response.