Why 37 Military Hospital is shutting down its medical emergency unit for 3 weeks
The 37 Military Hospital will from Thursday, January 14, shut down its Medical Emergency Unit (MEU) for three weeks in order to conduct a disinfection exercise.
The closure of the unit has become” necessary to enable the authorities to undertake the fumigation exercise as a remedy to any infestation,” a statement signed and issued by the Director of Public Relations of the Ghana Armed Forces, Col Aggrey Quarshie, said.
The respected military health facility will be opened to the public on February 4, 2020.
This comes at a time COVID-19 cases are on the rise in Ghana.
The statement, however, noted that the decision would not affect its in-patients.
“It is worth mentioning that measures have been put in place to ensure patients already on admission are not negatively affected,” it explained.
But the statement urged the general to seek medical and emergency healthcare elsewhere.
“The general public is advised to redirect all medical and emergency cases to other health facilities during the period,” it said.
Ironically, the medical and emergency unit of the hospital is shutting down at a time the Ghana Health Service says it is among some of the hospitals in Accra with 60% COVID-19 bed occupancy.
However, it will not be the first time a medical facility has shut down for fear of COVID-19 infection.
In April last year, three units at the Child Health Department of the Korle Bu Teaching Hospital was shut down after a child died of COVID-19.
The hospital closed down the Emergency, Neo-natal, Intensive Care and Pediatric units to tame a possible spread of the disease.
The boy was sent to the facility with an unknown ailment. At the early stages of his ailment, the deceased was said to have exhibited signs of rabies.
After the mother denied knowledge of the boy being bitten by a dog, the medical staff at the hospital took his sample for COVID-19 test.
The coronavirus results of the little boy took a while to be made available. During the period of his admission at the hospital, he was put on a ventilator while awaiting his results.
At the time his results finally came in, the boy had passed on. The results showed the boy had tested positive for the virus.