Covid 19 coronavirus: Nursing student mistakenly released from early isolation after close contact with a pub patron infected with the virus

A nursing student working in a major hospital was mistakenly allowed to come out of self-isolation before coming into contact with a Covid-19-infected customer at the pub where he works part-time, due to a communication error between health agencies.

To make matters worse, the man only found out about the cluster on social media during his lunch break at an Auckland hospital, despite being a close contact with the infected person and having worked with patients for three days.

The Health Ministry admitted the mistake and said it will investigate the incident to improve its contact tracing process, but has stopped short of apologizing.

The man, who does not want to be named, was a service manager at the Greenhithe pub in Auckland on Friday 16 October when the establishment was visited by a marine engineer who later tested positive for the virus.

The next day, the duty manager met briefly with his roommates before returning to work at The Malt on Sunday.

On Wednesday, the second-year nursing student was on a clinical internship at the hospital when he discovered the news of the latest community outbreak on Facebook.

“On my lunch break I was talking on the phone and that’s how I discovered that my workplace had closed and all the staff had to isolate themselves.”

He had been at the hospital working with patients since Monday.

The man, in his 20s, confirmed the post with his boss, called the university where he studies and alerted his clinical colleagues at the hospital. He said his responses were impeccable.

He called Healthline, which recommended testing for Covid-19 and isolating for 48 hours unless he showed symptoms.

The next day, the man says he was told by the Auckland Regional Public Health Service that because he had three roommates who also worked in clinical fields, he needed to leave the flat and remain in controlled isolation for 14 days at Jet Park. Hotel.

He remained in the quarantine center for one night, 25 hours in total.

On Friday he discovered that he was now considered a close contact of the infected person. And that his roommates also had to isolate themselves for 14 days.

Because they were all isolating for the same time period, the Auckland Regional Public Health Service [ARPHS] He allowed the man to return home that night to continue isolating himself with them.

But on Saturday afternoon he was called by the Ministry of Health and told that because his test was negative, he no longer needed to isolate himself.

The man says he was confused by the conflicting advice and asked if he needed another test or wait until he was cleared for a 12-day trial, but was told that as long as he had no symptoms, it was safe.

So he left his apartment and spent the night with his partner. The next morning it was a different story.

“Sunday morning I get a call from [Auckland regional] public health, because they call you every morning to check you up.

“They asked me about my symptoms and if I was going out of my house. I was like ‘Well, yes, the Ministry of Health authorized me.’ And they said ‘No, you haven’t.’

The nursing student said that initially the caller to ARPHS insisted that the phone call to release him from self-isolation was a joke and not from the ministry.

“They called me a bit later and said ‘Ok, this is what happened, there has been no communication between the two teams.’

He was ordered to re-isolate himself and return to his apartment.

“He was so furious with the situation.”

The contradictory messages continued when the man received a code that allowed to accelerate his second Covid-19 test.

A negative test would help your partner, who was forced to isolate himself due to the mistake, to get back to work faster.

“I went to my exam on Tuesday morning [this week] and the nurse at the testing station insisted they only use the code for people with symptoms. “

Finally, the test accelerated. It was negative again. The man ended self-isolation on Friday.

He said the lack of communication was unacceptable.

“I just think it’s reckless how the information is handled. If I was sure, this could have been an absolute disaster, but I just took the advice of officials who I thought knew what they were doing.

“I think it is necessary to highlight that there is no communication in this Covid response. We are what, seven months after this pandemic and this is still happening? I am thinking, how many people has this happened to?”

The man said he felt he was sent to a managed isolation facility with incorrect information.

“That not only puts me at risk because there are other people who are [Covid] positive in those areas, but it is also a huge cost.

“For me it is an unnecessary cost for people because it could be isolated at home and that room could be for someone coming from abroad.”

A spokesperson for the Ministry of Health said that and the ARPHS, as with other public health units of the district health board, routinely worked closely together to investigate and manage all close and casual contacts of cases of Covid-19.

He said the ministry was aware that the person initially spent some time in the Auckland quarantine facility before moving home to isolate himself with other household members.

He said it appeared that this was a situation where the man had contacted Healthline and was referred to the National Center for Investigation and Tracing. [NITC] – and was also contacted by ARPHS.

The standard ARPHS process for managing and following up on close contacts included wellness checks and symptom checks, along with advice on when and how many tests the close contact would be asked to perform, including a repeat test. around the 12th.

Both times, the man’s data was entered into the national contact tracing solution. [NCTS] which meant there was a duplication of your data.

“Systems are in place to ensure that in the vast majority of cases, when more than one contact is made and the person enters NCTS, the duplicate entry is collected, deleted and the person is handled appropriately,” the spokesperson said.

“There are robust processes in place to check for duplicate entries, however a look at the details of this instance will inform any work to make improvements to the NCTS.”

He said the ministry would follow up and, in the meantime, the ministry and public health units would continue to work together to minimize the impact of the problem.

“We recognize that there have been inconsistencies for this individual and we want to thank him for his patience and for remaining vigilant and helping to break the chain of transmission.”