Share
Staff professed themselves baffled at how the disease could be spreading. They even hinted the patients could be transferring it among themselves, as if they were slipping out of bed after lights out for illicit card games.
Gradually, it became evident that nurses were not being routinely tested for coronavirus. Only those who showed symptoms were belatedly swabbed. Others who were infected, but asymptomatic, were still doing their rounds.
It wasn t the hospital s fault that they didn t have enough testing kits. That s scant comfort to the families of Joyce and Jim, though.
What was truly baffling was the hospital s insistence, during Joyce s last hours, that only one daughter at a time could sit with her and hold her hand. To have two people at the bedside, even at the end, would breach their infection control protocol .