COVID-19 response teams in quarantine for 28 days

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A military personnel helps mobile screening teams carry out door-to-door tests in Suva. Picture: SUPPLIED/FT FILE

Health workers engaged in COVID-19 isolation units in Nadi are away from their families for almost a month before they are allowed to return to community health work.

This, according to the head of the COVID-19 response unit at the Nadi Hospital, Dr Pablo Romakin.

Speaking at the recent Fiji College of General Practitioners Western Faculty mini-conference in Nadi, he explained the intense resource management teams undergo while engaged in COVID-19 response work.

“We have the Nadi airport quarantine teams which are composed of the health inspectors and the Nadi quarantine facility team which has health inspectors that stay on site and are assisted by the military personnel,” he said.

“We also have a team at the Port Denarau for the Blue Lane initiative. We have an isolation unit at Port Denarau as well as at the Nadi International Airport.

“These three teams are being supported by a team from the Nadi Hospital.

“We have two teams at the Nadi Hospital which consists of medical officers. They have two medical officers and two nurses. We call them the screening team.

“They do the screening at the arrival area, as well as the daily screening at the various government quarantine facilities.

“We also have a team that looks after a suspected or confirmed case which is composed of one medical officer, six nurses, one ambulance driver and two cleaners.

“These are the teams looking after the isolation unit. The teams at the isolation unit are the ones that retrieve cases.” Dr Romakin also explained the steps taken by health officials once a case is confirmed.

“If somebody at the quarantine facility becomes symptomatic, the team from the isolation unit is the one that will retrieve them and will isolate them at the Nadi Hospital and do the testing and swabbing there.

“All of these teams are quarantined meaning when they work for the isolation unit, they are rostered for 14 days and after their roster they spend another 14 days in quarantine at the designated facility.

“So they are actually in quarantine for 28 days before they are tested and they can only be released to do non-COVID-19 activities after testing negative.

“So those working at the isolation unit are actually staying at a quarantine facility which is where all of our higher risk passengers are quarantined and for our teams working in the isolation unit.”

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