Ebola: health workers scared, flee hospital in Lagos

 

Afraid of contracting the Ebola virus, health workers at the Yaba Mainland Hospital, Lagos have been running away from patients isolated in the hospital, thus putting intense pressure on the few ones still treating victims.

Health workers in the hospital were also being pressured by family members to resign their appointments with the establishment.

Some of them are already avoiding the patients like a plague. As a result of this development, hospital sources said the few health workers available have been working for 24 hours in order to take care of patients in the isolated area.

Lagos State Commissioner for Health, Dr. Jide Idris, said on Wednesday that people in the isolation ward could die if they were not well managed, adding that government needed more hands.

Identifying lack of adequate health officials as a major challenge to containing the spread of the virus, he said, “Because of the fear of Ebola, everybody seems to be scared, nobody wants to assist, which is a major challenge.

“It is even more so for the treatment isolation ward. It’s a major problem because a lot of people ran away, especially when the nurse died.”

One of the senior medical practitioners in the hospital had this to say.

 “The pressure is too much for us; we have been working for 24 hours instead of the statutory eight hours because of inadequate manpower as a result of the ongoing doctors’ strike and other health workers that have been reluctant to move near the patients.”

“We have been relying on volunteers who have been helping us to carry out some of our responsibilities here. Our family members too have been panicking and putting pressure on us as a result of our insistence to continue to manage the carriers of Ebola virus; they are nursing the fear that we may contract the disease as many of them have insisted that we resign our appointments.

“One major aspect of the issue is the stigmatisation. Our neighbours have also been stigmatising us; they believe that because of the fact that Ebola patients are being managed here, they think we might have contracted the virus.”

He said the efforts to prevent the spread would have been completely defeated if not for some volunteers who had been assisting in managing those infected with the Ebola virus.

The senior health worker, who likened the challenge to a war situation in which reserved soldiers were mobilised to participate in fierce battle, said that it would require effective and co-ordinated effort to manage the patients as well as prevent the spread of the virus.

The senior health worker, however, recalled that some hospitals had been misdiagnosing patients suffering from severe malarial as contracting Ebola virus.

He particularly mentioned the case of a malarial patient who was referred to the Mainland Hospital by another hospital on the suspicion that he had contracted the Ebola virus.

He said, “Immediately the malaria patient was brought here on the suspicion that he had contracted Ebola virus, we treated him for three hours after which he requested for eba (Garri). The following day, the boy ate rice and plantain before we discharged him.”

The Lagos State chapter of the Nigerian Medical Association and the National Association of Nigerian Nurses and Midwives, last Sunday, accused the Federal Government of not being proactive enough in the fight against the virus.

They said the government had yet to put in place adequate measures to protect health workers willing to manage those infected.

The state NMA Chairman, Dr. Tope Ojo, asked the federal and Lagos State governments to provide protective kits and address the issue of hazard allowance for doctors, nurses and other health workers willing to be involved in treating infected persons.

A Sierra Leonean doctor, Sheik Umar Khan, was reported to have died, after contracting the disease, despite wearing a protective gear while treating Ebola patients.

The World Health Organisation recommends the use of personal protective equipment by health workers and caregivers attending to Ebola patients.

The disease can be transmitted through contact with blood and body fluids of infected individuals and with objects contaminated with the fluids.

Meanwhile, there is panic in Kuje following the decision of the government to manage Ebola patients at the Kuje General Hospital.

The Federal Capital Territory Administration had on Monday designated the male ward of the hospital as the isolation centre to manage Ebola cases in the city.

It also set up a technical committee on Ebola management headed by the FCTA Secretary for Health and Human Services, Dr. Demola Onakomaiya.

Investigations, however, indicated that health workers in the hospital feared that managing Ebola cases in the facility might expose them to the virus.

It was learnt that some youths had threatened to burn the facility, if the FCTA transferred Ebola patients to Kuje General Hospital.

Residents of the town described the decision to use the male ward of the hospital to manage Ebola patients as heartless.

Meanwhile, Oyo State has instituted 24-hour surveillance monitoring and tracking of suspected cases in all the 33 local government areas of the state.

The Commissioner for Health, Dr. Muyiwa Gbadegesin, said emphasis had been placed on the border regions of Saki West, Iwajowa, Atisbo and Itesiwaju council areas to prevent the spread of the Ebola virus into the state.

Pandemonium broke out last Sunday at Udo community in Ovia South-West Local Government Area of Edo State when a man suddenly slumped and died creating panic among residents that the man might have died of the Ebola virus disease.

But the state Commissioner for Information and Orientation, Mr. Louis Odion, said in a statement made available to journalists that examined samples from the man’s body showed that he died as a result of bleeding from peptic ulcer.

President Goodluck Jonathan last week summoned a stakeholders’ emergency meeting on the virus after which he approved N1.9bn to implement a Special Intervention Plan aimed at curtailing further spread of the virus.

The money, according to the President, is to further strengthen ongoing steps to contain the virus such as the establishment of additional isolation centres, case management, contact tracing, deployment of additional personnel and screening.

Jonathan, however, asked school owners across the country to consider extending the current holiday until the Federal Government would have carried out a reassessment of the level of the threat posed by the virus.

Also asking religious organisations to discourage gatherings that may increase the spread of the virus, the President asked that movement of corpses from one community to the other or from overseas into Nigeria should be stopped forthwith.

He directed the Ministry of Health to work in collaboration with state Ministries of Health, the National Centre for Disease Control, the National Emergency Management Agency and other relevant agencies to ensure that all possible steps are taken to effectively contain the threat of the Ebola virus in line with international protocols and best practices.

Also during the week, the President summoned the 36 state governors and their health commissioners to an urgent meeting to hold on Wednesday over the outbreak of the Ebola virus in the country.