A number of frontline health workers in Kumasi and Tamale have appealed to the government and the benevolent public to come to their aid with enough personal protection equipment (PPE) to enable them to effectively handle suspected COVID-19 cases without fear of contracting the virus.
They said they were going through challenging times, both at the workplace and at home, as the COVID-19 pandemic continued to bite in the country.
Among other things,14 workers in health institutors in the two cities who spoke to the Daily Graphic yesterday ( Sunday) complained about the lack of PPE in the workplace, and the fear of their families that they ( the workers) would infect them with the disease.
Kumasi
From Kumasi, Daniel Kenu reports that 10 health workers in some hospitals said they feared contracting the virus and infecting members of their families because they did not have adequate PPE to work with.
According to them, ordinarily, they need a set of the equipment for each section but due to inadequacy, they were forced to use one set for multiple activities.
Sharing their experiences with the Daily Graphic, the workers at the Suntreso Hospital said they may be compelled to stay home if the issue persisted.
Pleading anonymity, the health workers said with the number of donations being made and the shortage of the PPE at some health facilties in the country, they suspected some of the equipment were being diverted to wrong places.
They, therefore, urged the authorities to take a serious look at the situation to ensure that the right things were done.
A nurse indicated that psychologists needed to be deployed to assist frontline workers because of the mental torture they went through both at the hospitals and at home.
“At the hospital I can’t interact freely with my colleagues and at home I always stay off my children, and I fear I may suffer psychologically after this whole thing is over as any time I returned from work, I fear I may transfer whatever I carry to my children,” she said.
She said while helping to save lives, it was incumbent on the State to also put in place the necessary measures to safeguard their health and wellbeing.
Tamale
Samuel Duodu writes from Tamale that four health workers who spoke to the Daily Graphic stated that their families and friends were staying away from them for fear that they may infect them with the virus.
“Since Ghana started recording positive cases, and more, especially in Tamale, where 10 foreigners tested positive for COVID-19 , we are being shunned by some of our friends and relatives who think we might infect them with the virus,” a nurse said.
The health workers said some members of the public were of the view that because they were the first category of health workers to come into contact with patients at the facility, they were likely to be infected with the virus.
Facilities
A nurse who gave her name only as Rita said frontline workers in the various facilities across the metropolis, both public and private, did not have enough PPE to work with.
“There are not enough nose masks, gloves, headgears, boots, goggles and overall protective cloth to wear as frontline workers to protect us from being infected”, she stated.
She added that the nose masks and gloves needed to be discarded immediately one attended to a patient but because they were not enough, the workers were forced to use a pair of gloves and nose masks the entire day, which was putting the lives of the frontline workers at risk.
She alleged that some of her colleagues in the public sector had decided to stay at home as a result of the lack of PPE, saying that some private facilities in the metropolis in the coming weeks might be forced to shut down if they did not get supplies of the PPE for their frontline workers to use.
Another nurse working with one of the public health facilities, who pleaded anonymity, said at her workplace, they used only nose masks without gloves.
They also appealed to the government and the general public to come to their aid with PPE.
