BULAWAYO – Panic has gripped Hillside Police Station in Bulawayo after a nurse aide who should have been in self-isolation at home went to the station to resolve a dispute with her tenant, ZimLive has learnt.
The 52-year-old nurse aide, who works at Mater Dei Hospital, was ordered to self-isolate after attending to 79-year-old Ian Hyslop who died from the highly infectious respiratory virus on April 4, although the diagnosis was not known until April 7 due to delays in getting his sample to a laboratory Harare.
The woman, a resident of Hillcrest suburb, is one of three people who tested positive for coronavirus on Monday, April 13. She is known as ‘Case 16’.
An internal police memo dated April 15 reveals that on April 8, a day after Hyslop’s positive result came in, the nurse aide was ordered to take leave from work and self-isolate at home.
However, within hours of being told to go home and not leave, she went to Hillside Police Station where she came into contact with eight police officers, including one who sat on the same bench as her.
The memo, sent from Police Intelligence Hillside to the Police District Intelligence Officer, claims “social distance was maintained” during the time she was at the police station, where she arrived wearing a face mask.
On April 14, the officer who had sat with the nurse aide on the bench went to the ZRP Bulawayo Camp Hospital complaining of a flu.
The memo adds: “He was given sick no duty for three days and is supposed to report for duty on April 17, 2020.
“Among the police members the patient got in contact with, so far, it is Constable ****** who is not feeling well. There are chances that same could have had body contact with the patient although it was not revealed. There is need to self-isolate the concerned members.”
The officers involved are all expected to be tested for the virus.
Zimbabwe recorded the highest daily infections on Wednesday – five – all of them local infections in Bulawayo.
