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NAJ President Patsy Edwards Henry
Radio Jamaica News has been informed that the administration of Cornwall Regional Hospital has made temporary staffing changes after a number of nurses became infected with the coronavirus.
An official told Radio Jamaica News on Thursday afternoon that some nurses have been reassigned to help ease the personnel shortage.
The Nurses Association of Jamaica (NAJ) earlier reported that 53 nurses employed to the hospital are now under observation after testing positive or displaying symptoms of COVID-19. Thirty of them have so far tested positive for the virus.
NAJ President Patsy Edwards Henry disclosed that nurses at other hospitals - including Mandeville Regional Hospital and Bellevue Hospital - continue to be affected by the coronavirus.
The NAJ is making checks to ascertain the total number of nurses islandwide who are currently COVID-19 positive.
Mrs Edward Henry, who spoke Thursday on the Morning Agenda on Power 106, said nurses continue to be exposed to COVID-19 as many of them are operating without the required personal protective equipment (PPE).
She said PPE supplies are often quickly depleted due to the high number of patients turning up at hospitals.
"We find that the patients come, they come with no symptoms and you are caring for them in your surgical masks which does not give you the 100% protection, which you should have while caring for the COVID-19 positive patients."
"The ministry is always trying to ensure that we have the PPE, but with the number of cases rising, it's sometimes difficult. And it is also difficult for the nursing and the health care teams for everybody to be in N95 [masks] all day, all the time," Mrs Edwards Henry outlined.
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