Staff Reporter
A grave “error” resulted in Health MEC Montseng Tsiu announcing that 167 healthcare workers in the Free State had so far succumbed to COVID-19, nearly three times the province’s latest official count for coronavirus fatalities.
Instead, the disease had claimed the lives of only seven healthcare workers, the provincial health department said Friday evening.
While presenting her budget speech earlier in the day, the MEC said: “Regrettably we have so far lost 167 soldiers, that is healthcare workers in the battle field, affecting all our platoons at different levels.”
Her department however had to retract the statement after The Free Stater inquired why the figure was higher than the official total number of COVID-19 deaths in the province which at that time stood at 62.
Provincial health spokesperson Mondli Mvambi said the massive discrepancy was due to a typographical error in the MEC’s speech.
He said 167 was the number of healthcare workers in the province who had tested positive for COVID-19, not the total of those in the sector who had succumbed to the acute respiratory disease.
“The Free State MEC for Health would like to take this opportunity to correct this error and state that she was referring to health workers that have been infected by COVID-19,” Mvambi said in a statement.
“The MEC has further asked the department to expedite the consolidation of all numbers of health workers infected by COVID-19, so that she can duly pay tribute and appreciate the sacrifices paid by these frontline soldiers in the fight against COVID-19.
“The MEC would further like to state that the current numbers of health workers in the Free State that unfortunately and regrettably died due to COVID-19 is seven.”
PLEASE NOTE: As a result of the correction, we have in turn withdrawn the story which we had published under the headline “167 Free State healthcare workers succumb to COVID-19”.