About 168 Nurses and 70 Medical Doctors have tested positive of the novel coronavirus confirmed by both the Ghana Medical Association and the Ghana Registered Nurses Association(GRNA).
Three persons have however died including two medical doctors and one nurse who were said to be having underlying health conditions
According to the General Secretary of the Ghana Registered Association(GRNA), David Tenkorang Twum, the figures keep soaring and they are not surprising in view of the exposed nature of nurses on the field with most working without Personal Protective Equipment (PPE)
“The figures keep rising, we are not surprised because people are not listening. As we speak, we have about 168 nurses and midwives being infected, both public and private” he told Joy News monitored by MyNewsGh.com
He further explained that “Now the trajectory of the disease condition is changing, and as you may recall we used to do effective contact tracing and the rest of it. Now what we have observed is that people are reporting to the hospital with the disease… if you like they come either assytomatically or sytomatically.”
“Because we don’t do on the spot diagnosis they will be admitted onto the ward, and I’m telling you that unless we change the narratives or the way we manage our patients, we are going to have a lot of nurses and doctors, and other supporting staff getting infected. The people are admitted to the ward with ordinary cases but by the time you could say jack it turns COVID-19”
“I think we need to review the whole concept of management where we need to have an isolation area for reported cases.”
He mentioned that his outfit appealed to the Director General of the Ghana Health Service to allow pregnant nurses and midwives to go on mandatory leave but has not been given a hearing.
“The last time I spoke to your colleague I appealed to the director general to at least help so that nurses and midwives who are pregnant will stop coming to work. They did not heed to this call and as I speak with you I know a pregnant lady, she is 34 weeks pregnant and infected with the virus…the husband is a nurse in the Oti region. I won’t mention the name of the hospital, I don’t want to mention the name of the nurse too”, he stressed.
Source: MyNewsGh.com
