Mecca Bingo has been accused of putting profit before people’s health, after claims a staff member was forced to continue working when she should have been self-isolating.
It is claimed an employee at the firm’s Dundee Playhouse on Nethergate had called the bingo hall’s management over the weekend to say her daughter, who she lives with, was showing symptoms of coronavirus and was due to get her test results on Monday morning.
However the staff member says she was told she still had to come into work on Sunday and then four hours into her shift on Monday received the call to say her daughter had tested positive for Covid-19.
Although she was immediately sent home, a fellow colleague has now slammed the bingo hall’s response to the issue, saying the strict regulations were not followed, putting staff and customers at risk.
The colleague, who did not want to be named, said: “She should not have been told to come into work because she had been in the kitchen, the offices, the reception, taking food orders, and speaking to lots of different people.
“Her daughter had every symptom, she had lost her sense of smell and taste, she couldn’t breathe and she was coughing so she shouldn’t have even been allowed in the building.
“She has potentially contaminated a lot of areas and I feel we all should have been sent home because we could now be infected, we were all using the same toilets for example, and the toilets are not clean.
“Mecca Bingo is only caring about the money coming in, it is not caring about our health and is putting us and our customers at risk.”
A spokeswoman for Mecca Bingo confirmed an investigation into the incident is now under way.
She said: “We are aware of an alleged incident at Mecca Bingo Dundee Playhouse.
“Nothing is more important to us than the safety of our colleagues and customers and an internal investigation is under way.
“We are confident that we have the highest standards of mitigations and measures in place in all of our clubs across the country.
“Our clubs are regularly assessed internally by our health and safety team, as well as by visits from environmental health officers and local licence officers, who have advised us that we have good Covid-secure systems and procedures in place.
“We also have a central escalation process in place to handle any confirmed or suspected Covid cases, in line with government guidelines.”
