LAKEWOOD-With township officials admitting to as many as 40 cases of coronavirus days ago that went unreported, new unconfirmed reports out of Lakewood tell a picture of a different story than the one being told today by the Ocean County Health Department.
According to the OCHD, no new coronavirus cases were confirmed in Lakewood in the past 24 hours, claiming the count was just 53 cases countywide. The department has officially reported just 26 cases in Lakewood where Governor Phil Murphy has reemphasized his declaration of social distancing in the community have huge gatherings were reported in the media and on social media.
The Lakewood Scoop, one of the more reliable sources of information coming from within the Orthodox Jewish community on Thursday claimed as many as 40 cases.
Today, an anonymous email sent to the media by a person who claims to work at Lakewood’s Monmouth Medical Center, Southern Campus cried for help.
- Please help. I am writing this email anonymously due to fear of losing my job, hurting friends, and family. I work in Monmouth Medical Center, Southern Campus, otherwise known to most as Lakewood Hospital. We have had many patients in the past few days who were deemed necessary for Covid-19 testing by Doctors, but “Quality Control” is disposing of the tests before they are sent to the lab due to “not meeting criteria”.It was found out that a few patients were tested, and “Quality Control” was trying to dispose of their tests but could not find them before they were sent to the lab. Even though they “did not meet testing criteria”, those tests came back positive. Many hospital staff are coming into contact with patients like this, many nurses and doctors are exposed to patients with Covid-19 and no PPE at all. Visitors, patients unrelated to Covid-19, hospital staff alike, are all exposed to this virus and going home etc. Rumors among staff is that the hospital is trying to reduce the amount officially positive for Covid-19 and also reduce testing costs.
There is staff with children, working pregnant women, staff with elderly family at home….No one is doing the right thing, management is giving terrible direction on how to handle the situation, and further spreading of this virus can be prevented.
Please help get this out to the public. I don’t know who else to contact.
The anonymous letter was also sent to News 12, The Asbury Park Press, and Patch.
Shore News Network attempted to contact Ellen Greene, who is listed as the Monmouth Medical Center, Southern Campus media contact this afternoon regarding the email but no response was returned as of this writing. The authenticity of the email at this time cannot be confirmed.
We are asking publicly for the Southern Ocean Medical Center to respond to our request for clarification and will publish their response as soon as we receive it. The letter was sent anonymously, but we had expected the hospital to quickly and easily dismiss that claim.