By Staff Reporter
Gweru City Council has closed three community clinics amid reports that more than 20 employees tested positive to Covid 19, leaving patients stranded without assistance.
According to a public notice placed at a council clinic entrance gate and signed by the sister in charge reads,” The clinic is closed until further notice, all patients to go to Senga clinic for supply”
Gweru mayor , Councillor Josiah Makombe said Ivene, IDH and Child Welfare clinics were temporary closed to beef up manpower at other clinics who are taking many patients.
A Councilor who requested not to be named said the local authority was operating with a skeletal workforce after some employees tested positive to Covid-19 while others have also gone into isolation waiting results after getting in contact with positive colleagues.
The source said hardest hit were the health and fire brigade departments where over 15 employees tested positive
“The situation is dire at town house because we have over 20 employees who tested positive and these have their contacts within the council and outside. The situation has crippled operations at council.
GCC last year turned its mayoral house into an isolation center for Covid-19 patients.
Councillor Makombe also confirmed the development saying those who have tested positive were now in isolation.
“Its true we have a number of employees who have tested positive to Covid-19 with 10 of them under our fire department,” he said.
Clr Makombe said the health department working with the Covid 19 district taskforce team was monitoring the situation as well as contact tracing.
“We are monitoring the situation with the help from health experts. The majority of them are in isolation at their homes.
Clr Makombe said there were over a dozen who have also been tested and were waiting for their results.
“After many of our employees tested positive, there were a lot of their contacts whose samples were collected and are now waiting for their results,” he said
Clr Makombe said the fire department which constituted the local authority’s frontline team was the most affected.
“The challenge with our fire department is that they get in contact with many people because they constitute our frontline team.
Talk of patients who get sick they are attended by our fire team with our ambulance, at times they attend to Covid-19 patients carrying them in our ambulance.
They also attend accidents and this has resulted in most of them testing positive to Covid-19,” he said.
Clr Makombe said most of the employees were asymptomatic.
“The report I got is that those who have tested positive have no symptoms but we continue to monitor the situation. We currently don’t have any employee in our isolation centre all of them are in isolation at their homes,” he said.
