There is no covid19 outbreak at the Scarborough General Hospital.

That’s the word from the THA Division of Health, Wellness and Family Development in response to a post circulating on social media.

In a statement on Thursday, the division said covid19 clusters are fairly common in large organisations and medical facilities all around the world.

It said, since the start of the pandemic there have been clusters of covid19 cases from time to time at some medical facilities in Tobago.

At present there are 18 covid19 clusters on the island, the division said.

It added hospitals and health care facilities will always be a space where viruses can spread.

“It is where sick people go.”

The hospital, the division said, is fully operational and remains unaffected by the current cluster of covid19 cases.

“Usually, when a case is identified, all protocols kick in – from sanitisation to swabbing. Wards are regularly sanitised, and each bed is sanitised after a patient is discharged.”

The division said patients who are suspected of having covid19 and present at the Accident and Emergency department are swabbed before admission.

Its policy is also to swab patients for elective surgery. Those patients are required to have a negative PCR result before admission.

Patients who have already been admitted to the hospital and show symptoms of covid19 are also swabbed

“This happens even if they previously had a negative covid19 result.”

The division said the hospital has about 1,200 staff spread across the facility.

“There is a cluster of 18 covid19 cases at the moment. All protocols have been observed for sanitisation, testing, contact tracing, isolation and monitoring, as is the norm.”