The Oqaqeni Clinic in Maphumulo, northern KwaZulu-Natal remained closed on Monday after a nurse tested positive for Covid-19 last week. Photo: Zimbili Vilakazi
4 May 2020
The gates to Oqaqeni Clinic in Maphumulo, northern KwaZulu-Natal remained closed on Monday morning. This after the facility was shutdown on Friday when a nurse tested positive for Covid-19.
According to a source at the clinic, the nurse felt sick last weekend and started developing flu symptoms.
The source says management at the clinic and the district decided that the facility needed to be closed immediately and that all staff should be tested for the virus and quarantined for 14 days.
“We’ve been tested and we are yet to receive our results. At the moment we’re being quarantined at the Masikane Old Aged Home which is several kilometres from the clinic,” says the source.
She says the staff member’s family and close contacts will also be screened and tested. A call has also been put out to all of the patients who visited the facility between 6 and 27 April to come forward and be tested.
The source says the nurse who tested positive is being treated at Ntunjambili Hospital which is the provincial department’s quarantine site for all the Covid-19 patients in the iLembe District.
The source said staff were told that the clinic would be properly sanitized during its closure.
Meanwhile, residents in the area say they now have to use Otimati and Maphumulo clinics. Resident Bazamile Gcwensa says patients pay around R15 to travel to the clinics.
A source from Otimati Clinic told GroundUp that Oqaqeni residents are flocking to their facility in large numbers.
When we contacted KwaZulu-Natal health spokesperson, Noluthando Nkosi on Friday, she said she was not aware of the closure and promised to get back to us. She did not answer calls on Monday morning.