EC prepares Livingstone hospital to deal with any coronavirus infections

Eastern Cape health authorities have joined the rest of the world in taking precautionary measures to deal with exposure to the deadly coronavirus.

Despite numerous complaints about the condition of Livingston Hospital in Port Elizabeth, the 400-bed facility is the designated quarantine hospital to treat patients, should there be any reported coronavirus cases in the province.

Nelson Mandela Academic Hospital in Mthatha and Frere Hospital in East London have been given holding facility status.

Provincial health spokesperson Sizwe Kupelo said it was important to note that there had been no reported cases of people contracting the virus in SA. The virus has been declared a global health emergency by the World Health Organisation.

“We would like to allay any fears and assure Eastern Cape citizens that our highly trained medical personnel are ready should the virus be detected anywhere in the province,” he said.

“We would like to call on people to visit clinics so that they can be examined and treated should they have any flu symptoms. We continue to remain on high alert.”

There are Eastern Cape residents stranded in China.

Amy Pittaway, of Makhanda, is in Wuhan, China, which is at the epicentre of the outbreak.

She has been teaching there.

Pittaway spoke to 702 presenter Bongani Bingwa on Friday and said the virus had reached its peak in the city.

“We are now completely stranded ... I just want to come home, I just want to go back to my mom and give her a big hug. We are feeling very abandoned and alienated from our own country.”

There is concern about Livingstone Hospital and its suitability to treat any potential outbreak of the virus in the Eastern Cape.

The hospital has been beset with problems, with patients reporting “hellish” experiences. In 2019, a woman complained of being placed in a bed soaked in urine, while an admissions clerk was caught on video doing his duties while drunk. The clerk was subsequently fired.

Meanwhile, health minister Zweli Mkhize on Friday reassured South Africans that no confirmed cases of the coronavirus had been reported in the country.

He said all precautions were being taken to mitigate risks, including the referral of air passengers to nurses on their arrival in the country if they had elevated temperatures.

“We have remained vigilant on developments regarding the movement and behaviour of the viral infection across the world and continue to engage the international fraternity to better understand how the virus behaves and its health effects,” Mkhize said at the National Institute for Communicable Diseases in Johannesburg.

He said special measures had been implemented at Johannesburg's OR Tambo International Airport, where travellers on direct flights from China and those who had travelled to Wuhan in the past 14 days were required to complete a questionnaire for possible tracing.

Mkhize said 55 travellers were found to have an elevated temperature and were referred to nurses for further assessment.

He said 14 were from China, one from Thailand and 40 were from non-endemic countries.  -Additional reporting by TimesLIVE.