Temperature checks for arriving passengers

The Health Ministry has purchased six infra red thermometers at a cost of US$1200 to get temperature readings of arriving passengers to TT.

Last week Chief Medical Officer, Dr Rampersad Parasram, told the media that the Ministry had intended to acquire the thermometers in addition to a thermal detector to scan passengers as they walked through Immigration. Meanwhile, the Ministry yesterday refuted a report (in another newspaper) claiming that workers at the Thoracic Ward of the EWMSC were boycotting the area because a woman was being treated for  suspected Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS). The Ministry said the patient in question was not and is not even a suspected or probable case of SARS.

A source at EWMSC told Newsday the Thoracic Medical Ward has been cleared  to accommodate the patient, who is receiving treatment for viral pneumonia. She is reportedly responding well to treatment. The source said patients on the ward (who were being treated for tuberculosis) have been moved to the Hibiscus Suite and nearby Medical Ward. She said the patient is being treated although nurses are “not taking any chances.” The Ministry said the claim by  an anonymous doctor with an African accent that there were no nurses on duty was “totally false, and the truth is that there were and are nurses on all wards at the EWMSC who are attending to patients”. It has assured the public that in the event of a SARS outbreak, all necessary precautions will be taken to curtail the situation.