MAY PEN, Clarendon — With the country’s first monkeypox patient unwilling to name the driver who transported him when he recently left the hospital, a medical officer is appealing to members of the public for help. The police will also be asked to assist in the effort.

“My only concern now is that we still don’t know who was driving that car, so I need some information from the public… I need to find that person who was driving that car and the patient is not giving that information. I will continue to try to get the information and I want the police to work with us to see how best we can get that information,” the parish’ medical officer of health, Dr Kimberly Scarlett-Campbell told Thursday’s sitting of the Clarendon Municipal Corporation’s monthly meeting.

There was widespread panic last Saturday when news broke that the patient had ‘escaped’ from the May Pen Hospital. The man has refuted claims that he escaped through a window, telling the Sunday Observer that he walked out the front door after informing hospital staff that he was leaving to attend to his five year-old child.

“My concern as a public health practitioner is that this must not happen again, because it has implications for the public and my job is to protect the public. I am happy that he was apprehended and brought back in and now that he is in isolation, we have put systems in place that he cannot escape again. He is in hospital getting treatment as he should,” Dr Scarlett-Campbell told the meeting.

Councillor Uphel Purcell (PNP, York Town Division) questioned why measures had not been in place to inform the patient of his status or stop him from leaving the medical facility.

“The patient should have been informed because the person was admitted on suspicion. Then when we got the results in 24 hours, by then the person would have already been admitted because as soon as we suspected we admitted the person immediately,” Dr Scarlett-Campbell replied.

“Sometimes when you get some news like this, the person may not process the news as well. The doctors will tell them they have this diagnosis but they don’t want to accept that diagnosis because of the stigma that may be associated with it. But I have gotten feedback from the doctors that he was informed that he has the monkeypox. I don’t know what is happening with that but he was informed,” she added.

She steered clear of commenting on how the patient exited the facility, noting instead that the management team at the May Pen Hospital is responsible for security there.

“I don’t want to speculate that he walked out or went through a window. I think May Pen Hospital will do their own investigation to find out how he left, I don’t want to get involved in that. All I want to say to them is to try not to let this happen again,” she urged.

Dr Scarlett-Campbell lauded the team at the health department for being able to make the diagnosis as quickly as they did and their swift action in quarantining individuals as required. She reiterated that there is still only one confirmed case of monkeypox in the parish.