4 DMCH doctors in home quarantine

Four doctors of Dhaka Medical College Hospital (DMCH) were sent to home quarantine yesterday, since all four handled an identified coronavirus patient without any protective gear for over a week.  

However, the nurses or ward helpers who actually touched the patient or administered intravenous medication, were not sent on quarantine.   

Furthermore, no step was taken to quarantine the other patients of the ward where the coronavirus patient was admitted. 

"The patient who tested positive for coronavirus was admitted to the medicine ward around 8 or 9 days back, with flu-like symptoms," described Professor Dr Mujibur Rahman, the head of the Department of Medicine at DMCH. 

The patient was a returnee from a foreign country, but Dr Rahman requested that the country not be named to maintain the patient's privacy.

"The patient was treated for his symptomes and given dialysis. On Tuesday we found out that his symptoms suggested that he has the coronavirus. So we called the Institute of Epidemiology Disease Control And Research (IEDCR) and they came to collect his samples," described Professor Mujibur Rahman. 

The patient's results came back positive yesterday. 

A board immediately sat down to discuss the next steps, and the four doctors who the dealt most with the patient were sent on home-quarantine. 

A professor of medicine at Dhaka Medical College Hospital said, "We are constantly getting patients with flu-like symptoms. We continue to work in these conditions without any protection."