THE Kuala Lumpur Hospital’s (HKL) male psychiatric ward will not be receiving new admissions after 10 cases of Covid-19 cases were detected in the ward over the past week, said Health Minister Dr Adham Baba.

Adham said that the ward remains open, but will stop receiving new patients until the infections are cleared.

“Usually, we would just ‘freeze’ the affected ward or compartment to curb the outbreak.”

“This means existing patients will remain in the same area while there would not be new admissions into that particular ward,” he told Sin Chew Daily today.

Meanwhile, the hospital will operate as usual and new admissions will be placed in unaffected wards, said the health minister.

Adham said that the hospital will monitor patients who had come into close contact with the index patient, adding that the full situation of the Covid-19 outbreak will be known after two days.

The Malaysian Insight reported yesterday that the psychiatric ward was ordered to close for a second time after eight patients tested positive for Covid-19. The latest outbreak was believed to have started from a patient who was admitted to the ward on July 1.

The ward had just reopened for about a week after being closed for a fortnight, which was also due to a coronavirus outbreak.

A medical staff, who did not want to be named, said 56 employees in the psychiatric department had been identified as close contacts.

All 56 staff members tested negative during the first round of tests and are expected to undergo a second test today and tomorrow. – July 6, 2021.