Statement from Health and Community Services

17 November 2020

The Department for Health and Community Services has issued the following statement: ​

Following yesterday’s announcement that the General Hospital has 3 confirmed cases of Covid-19, we can now indicate that one of these cases is unrelated to the other 2.

Additionally, there has been a further unrelated positive admission. However, we expect one of these patients to be discharged later today.

None of these patients is in hospital due to COVID - they are all being treated for other conditions. The Hospital continues to function as normal.

One ward in the Hospital has been closed as part of our usual infection control measures to contain the virus.

The infection control measures include:

• daily screening of all staff and patients who have been on the affected ward, with visitors contacted by Track and Trace
• closing the affected ward for the next 10 days
  
• enhanced cleaning of the ward and surrounding areas
• reducing the movement of staff in the surrounding wards
• maintaining the policy that all staff wear surgical face masks at all times and in all areas of the Hospital
• continuing to monitor compliance with mask-wearing and PPE for staff, patients and visitors

To protect the identity of the patients and respect the privacy of relatives and visitors, we will not be commenting further.