Today the Director of Health Services Dr,. Marvin Manzanero went to the Northern Regional Hospital in Orange Walk. That hospital is managing a full blown COVID epidemic - and has sen a succession of deaths since last week Friday - all males from a 6 year old to and 80+ year old.
The 6 year old, of course, is Arturo Godoy and today in Orange Walk, Dr Manzanero spoke to CTV-3 about how his case was managed.
The family believes that Arturo - who already had kidney disease as a pre existing condition - contracted COVID in the hospital. Dr Manzanero said that other members of his family are COVID infected.
Reporter
"I know that the family as to where this child may have been exposed to the virus. Their thinking is that within the health system."
Dr. Marvin Manzanero, DHS
"The patient was referred from here to Karl Heusner as already as identified case, so I don't know that he could have gotten it at Karl Heusner. Reviewing the history here, again without getting into details, there is a contact tracing that needs to happen as potentially what has transpired and find out which other family members and I believe they should be able to share who else is positive in the family rather than us saying it. We have to be respectful of the processes for them and I would rather not divulge into information as to potential situations."
Reporter
"The family also raised some concerns about the protocols within the KHMH, a small child not being able to have someone with him while there?"
Dr. Marvin Manzanero, DHS
"That was flagged. I had actually ask that from Karl Heusner on the Saturday seeing what level of care was being given, who has access to the child inside the hospital, because it is an ICU, it's a Covid-19 area. We had discuss outside of Karl Heusner how we would handle potential cases, because granted you have a child, you should have some adult being able to accompany that process and you may eventually have to sacrifice somebody that goes in. But I haven't gotten the report from Karl Heusner as to how they handled and why they handled that particular case in the manner they did, so I wouldn't be able to comment any further on that."
Reporter
"But that's not the norm of how it should be done."
Dr. Marvin Manzanero, DHS
"I think it can improve. I would have to find out why specifically they decided to take the actions that they did. They may have a reason for doing that, so we have to find out what exactly happened."
Manzanero also discussed the reason for his trip to Orange Walk - which is to see how that hospital is managing the surge in cases and deaths - and to try and understand why there are so many COVID deaths in Orange Walk - which accounts for fully one third of the infections countrywide:
Dr. Marvin Manzanero, DHS
"The issue that I think also drives us to look at the data is to see if we are missing out anything, why is it that we continue seeing increasing numbers, sudden death - why people are showing us rather late here and you make a diagnosis postmortem as we did with the last case just yesterday. Trying to understand the dynamics of that, trying to talk to population seeing under what level they come here. So I think there are things that you could potentially fix, like even the wait time that patients have out there out in the sun - those kinds of things. Trying how to bridge a gap, getting a sense of how the staff is feeling, that they have been at this for weeks or months and they perhaps they are not seeing anything coming out in the clear. I think those are the elements we are trying to iron out."
"One of the other items that we intend to finally be able to roll out completely although they already have the SD Biosensor, which is the rapid test we are using, is start to use it more routinely with the given population that we are seeing here. So, it's basically trying to continue to identify cases rather quickly and being able to contain them."
Reporter
"The last few deaths that were recorded here from Orange Walk, you guys are looking at that as well?"
Dr. Marvin Manzanero, DHS
"Primarily, that's the other thing, because one of the other things that people can say maybe you are doing more tests in Orange Walk and that's why you are identifying more cases and I am saying perhaps that might be the case, but then you are not having so many people hospitalized in other areas, you are not having people dying in other areas or having sudden as you are having here, so there must be a peculiarity that we should be able to narrow here. As I said the next move is to try to do quicker identification of cases, so that people are not walking out of here maybe getting the sense that they are not really positive, so that if you have a result that you are able to give them once they leave, they know that they already have a result that they must now take all the precautions to avoid the spread."
"The sense that people here are getting is we have also have people who have self-discharge who may have been here and then they decide to go and finish their treatment at home and then they come back further complicated, so we are trying to see if mental health can give support to the patients that are in there, because people are here for a prolong period. I believe the gentleman that here is here for more than 2 weeks. So people will go through all those mental situations where they are trying to grapple with other items. The last 2 deaths you have said one is older than 80, one is older than 75 - you try to find out what can potentially you change in terms of ensuring that these deaths don't happen."
