Mahatma Gandhi Memorial Hospital to remain open, for now
KwaZulu-Natal Health Department is not shutting the doors of Mahatma Gandhi Memorial Hospital - despite the emergence of nine coronavirus cases there.
Six nurses and three patients have tested positive for COVID-19 so far.
The hospital's board says a patient -- admitted to the Phoenix-based facility -- didn't declare his symptoms.
READ: Mahatma Gandhi Memorial Hospital affected by suspected COVID-19 cases
The alarm was raised when other patients' temperatures spiked.
Local unions want the hospital to be temporarily shut, and more nurses tested.
But speaking in Mayville on Sunday, Health MEC Nomagugu Simelane-Zulu said they won't be closing Mahatma Gandhi Memorial just yet.
"I am aware that there have been some healthcare workers who wanted to institute a tools-down approach because they were saying the hospital has not been closed. We are not going to close the hospital. But, we have looked at the areas that have been infected.
"We have made sure that those areas have been cleaned and while we are waiting for results we converted some of the wards into quarantine areas because we wanted to make sure that people who are infected don't go out - but those that are not infected don't come in."
KwaZulu-Natal records about 20 new coronavirus cases a day.
