Around 900 hospital staff have so far been infected by the coronavirus, Health Secretary Jeane Freeman has admitted for the first time.
Ms Freeman produced data suggesting 894 hospital workers had been struck by the disease or were suspected to have the virus.
The figure raised more fears about the risk of acquiring the infection in hospitals following last week’s revelation that around 900 patients on non-Covid wards had the virus.
At Holyrood Ms Freeman confirmed 901 hospital patients on non-Covid wards had been hit by the virus – 870 were confirmed cases and the remainder were suspected. Of those, 218 have died.
Addressing MSPs, Ms Freeman declined to say whether any of the 894 workers had been killed by the disease.
The Health Secretary revealed the figures during a furious row at Holyrood over how the Scottish Government has treated data on hospital infection.
Last week Ms Freeman said there had been 125 “incidents” of coronavirus on non-Covid wards between March 18 and June 3, a figure that was widely interpreted as meaning 125 patients.
Later, however, it emerged the 125 incidents had involved 908 patients (a figure that was revised downwards to 901). Of those patients, 218 had died.
Ms Freeman emphasised that the data was “unvalidated” at this stage and was based on reports from health boards. She said it was not a definitive account because of the virus’s 14-day incubation time.
In the Scottish Parliament, Tory health spokesman Miles Briggs suggested Ms Freeman should apologise to families for the “misleading picture” that had emerged around the spread of coronavirus in hospital wards.
He also called for more accurate figures to be published.
If Mr Briggs thinks for one minute that I do not spend just about every minute of my day thinking about the impact of the pandemic, he is very much mistaken.”
Jeane Freeman, Health Secretary
Ms Freeman said she had been “attempting to be helpful” by publishing “unvalidated data”, but suggested that she would not do so in the the future.
She said she apologised to everyone who has lost a loved one during the pandemic and said everyone should do that every day.
“If Mr Briggs thinks for one minute that I do not spend just about every minute of my day thinking about the impact of the pandemic, he is very much mistaken.
“What I will continue to do is publish validated data from now on, because… it is clear these are suspected transmissions, suspected cases, suspected deaths linked to them and the validated data will be published, I hope, by the end of this month. Although all of that is clear, you have chosen to take unvalidated data and pretend it is validated. That is inexcusable.”
Concern over hospital infection of hip patients
Mr Briggs replied by saying that Ms Freeman had admitted at the weekend that not enough hospital staff were being tested. Surgeons had warned that one fifth of patients treated for broken hips in March and April had gone on to get the virus while in hospital, Mr Briggs said.
The Conservative MSP claimed the Scottish Government’s failure to test staff had led to this situation.
Ms Freeman said the data was an estimation and it was only when the data was validated that it would be known how many of those cases, staff infections and deaths were because of hospital acquired Covid-19.
Later Mr Briggs said: “As each day goes past it is a fight to get details out of ministers and yet again here’s Jeane Freeman declaring a figure with staff who’ve potentially been infected with Covid-19. How can we hold them to account if she’s not saying whether or not that’s an accurate figure? And how many of those have died? When she started talking about incidents very soon it became cases and deaths. So for all her screaming and shouting we are struggling to get facts out of the government. It is a drip, drip of issues.”
When asked if there had been any deaths recorded amongst the 894 hospital workers thought to have been infected with Covid-19, a Scottish Government spokesman said: “As the First Minister, Cabinet Secretary and Chief Medical Officer have made clear today, this data is unvalidated and it is not clear how many of these cases were contracted in hospital or in the community.
“A robust validation process is currently being undertaken by Health Protection Scotland and Board colleagues, applying the recently agreed UK and European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) definition for COVID-19. Until this is complete it is not possible to draw any definitive conclusions about healthcare-associated COVID-19 from these numbers.
“We report the number of health and social care workers who have sadly lost their lives from COVID-19 every Wednesday. It is not currently possible to say whether those individuals contracted COVID-19 in the community or at work.”
