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Coronavirus Scotland: Dundee nurses exposed to Covid-19 without knowing as infected patient treated in general ward

NURSES in a Dundee hospital were exposed to coronavirus without knowing after an infected patient was treated in a general ward.

A whistleblower revealed to The Times that staff didn’t wear PPE when tending to the patient at Ninewells Hospital in the city.

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Five patients in the ward have since tested positive for the killer bug.

And three health workers were forced to take time off after they suffered symptoms of Covid-19.

The patient was diagnosed with the virus on March 15 - days before NHS Tayside implemented a rigorous testing process for staff that has been praised by Nicola Sturgeon.

A nurse who worked on the ward said she was not contacted by health officials despite treating the bug victim who had been in the hospital “for weeks”.

She said: “To this day I have never been told I was working with a patient with coronavirus with no PPE.”

NHS Tayside say that all staff were contacted “to alert them to the positive case on the ward”.

And they added that national screening guidance in place at the time was followed.

The nurse self-isolated after she was told by a colleague that the patient had been confirmed to have contracted the infection.

She claimed that a phone call had been made to the ward to let staff know of the result - so that the Covid-19 sufferer could be moved to a private room.

The nurse said: “Officially I didn’t need to do anything because nobody has contacted me.

“My own conscience wouldn’t let me do it [go back to work].”

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The whistleblower said around ten nurses and three auxiliary staff would have been working when the call was made.

They added that this information was then disseminated unofficially to their off-shift colleagues.

Bill Bowman, a Tory MSP for the North East of Scotland, wrote to health secretary Jeane Freeman after being contacted by the nurse. He has not yet received a response.

He said: “It has now emerged that dozens, if not hundreds of NHS Tayside staff, patients and visitors were exposed to Covid-19 without their knowledge.

“It would have taken mere hours for infection to travel well beyond the general wards.”

We told how a probe was launched at the hospital after a virus outbreak on a non-Covid ward at the hospital.

NHS Tayside said: "NHS Tayside said: “Across Tayside, as in all health boards, there have been positive cases of Covid-19 identified in some areas which are non-Covid wards. In this instance all health protection protocols were followed as per Health Protection Scotland guidance.”