The representative of the CEMSATSE union at the Doctor José Molina Orosa Hospital, Antonio Becerra, has denounced "the lack of protection that the healthcare personnel are suffering" in said center, after two workers tested positive for coronavirus.
In this regard, Becerra states that "the healthcare personnel who have been in direct contact with said professionals are outraged by the refusal of the occupational risk prevention and occupational medicine service to carry out PCR Covid tests on those colleagues who have lived closely with the aforementioned positives".
"Tests have been carried out on patients treated by these professionals, but not on all those who coincided with the positives during their long working day, arguing that the protocol only refers to contacts that occurred in the 48 hours prior, but not a few hours before," he points out.
According to the CEMSATSE representative at the Molina Orosa Hospital, "the person in charge of said service alleges that if someone has been in contact outside the 48 hours prior to the diagnosis, it does not fall within the PCR protocol, even if the contact was only a few hours before and during a whole day".
"It is also known when and how these positives were infected, and at the time of the test, more than a week had passed since said event. Therefore, those who were in contact only a few hours before the 48 hours have been living with someone who had already been infected for more than five days," he adds.
Workers who have had to "go to the private sector to get tested"
The CEMSATSE representative states that the union is surprised that "a professional who is supposed to have a minimum level of preparation is not capable of assessing when a test should be done due to circumstances that escape the protocol".
"The situation of concern and fear that these healthcare professionals are experiencing, who as we know are the group most affected by Covid, is such that many have chosen to get tested in private centers with the absurdity that personnel working in a hospital have to go to the private sector to get said tests," explains Antonio Becerra.
Thus, he insists "on the need to protect healthcare personnel", insisting that in addition to being the group "most punished" during the pandemic, it is also "the one that the population describes as the most valued for their performance during it". "This also results in the population being served not being harmed by contagion precisely by the professional who cares for them," he concludes.
