Coronavirus: West Gonja hospital cry over lack of PPEs

The West Gonja Catholic Hospital designated as a treatment centre for the novel coronavirus in the Savannah Region is without Personal Protection Equipment (PPE).

This was made known by the Medical Superintendent, Dr. Vitalis A.Saadare in an exclusive interview with PAD FM's Ananpansah B. Abraham.

He said albeit a regional treatment centre, they were not capable of taking samples, not to talk of managing cases should the worst happen due to the lack of basic protection materials.

The hope of receiving government consignment in his view was long overdue, underscoring the need to protect health personnel in their line of duty, since if they die in the process of taking care of patients there would be no one to take care of ensuing cases.

"...But as far as the Personal Protection Equipment are concerned which comprises the suit and all its accoutrements, we do not have a single one. As we speak, we do not have the suit here in this hospital, so if we happen to get any suspected case we would not even be able to take a sample. Taking us back to the recent events, we suspected a case last week. We brought the gentleman to the ward and had to take a sample. And you cannot take the sample when you're not properly protected. So we had to wait for 24 hours to make a request for just one(of the protective cloth) from Tamale," he stated.

According to him, subsequent to the case involving the Damongo based Italian returnee which proved negative, the hospital has not received any support to acquire these equipment and would not be able to take a sample if a suspected case is recorded.

This is despite the fact that the facility spent not less than thousand Ghana cedis in transporting the samples to Kumasi for the necessary examination.

He said the hospital has put together a preparedness plan and would need a total amount of Ghc217,800.00 to fund the plan and another Ghc878,965.00 for all Diocesan Health Services in Damongo.

He appealed to government and other well-meaning bodies to come to the aid of the hospital.

The Bishop of the Diocese and Chief Executive Officer for the hospital, Most Rev.Peter Paul Angkyier, who was on a one-day visit to the facility commended management and staff for the good work they were doing in the midst of little.

He bemoaned the lack of logistics and equipment at the recently commissioned Neonatal Intensive Care Unit and the COVID-19 treatment centre.

He commended a weekly political program hosted by Ananpansah B Abraham on PAD FM for helping to dispel rumours about the Coronavirus and redirecting the conversion to the preparedness of the region in containing the spread of the virus, in terms of logistics.

Prayer, he said was not enough without the preparedness of the human person.

Present also were the normalisation committee members of the hospital led by Fr.Lazarus Annyereh.

Ghana's case count now stands at 137 with four deaths and two reported recovery cases.

The Upper West Region in Northern Ghana has confirmed its first case of COVID-19, involving a 42-year old Ghanaian who visited UK and Spain and returned to Ghana through Egypt.

President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo has announced a partial lockdown of Accra and Kumasi, the epicentres of the coronavirus diseases in Ghana effective Monday, March 30, 2020.