The All Ceylon Health Workers’ Union has stressed the need for a separate ward at the Karapitiya Teaching Hospital to treat swine flu patients.

Authorities’ failure to isolate those patients posed a health threat to hospital workers and other patients, said the union’s Southern Province secretary Sarath Jayantha.

He said three swine flu victims were now being treated at the hospital’s Intensive Care Unit, while 15 other patients were also undergoing treatment in other wards.

Jayantha said a nurse, attached to the ICU, was suspected to have contracted the disease while another nurse who contracted swine flu had returned to work after recovery.