There is panic at one of the nation’s elite health centres, the Trust Hospital (formally SSNIT Hospital) in Accra, after the ‘mysterious’ death of a fourth nurse, Mrs. Cecilia Adade, over a cancer related ailment. Almost the entire health workers of the hospital are held completely spell bound.
What initially seemed as mere scare mongering has turned into huge fuss as some health workers were said to have been refusing duties at the Injection Room of the hospital for fear of meeting the fate of their departed colleagues, who coincidentally have all died of cancer related diseases.
Sullen and depressed health workers of the aforementioned hospital said the installation of a computerized Tomography Scan (CT Scan) machine at the hospital is largely the cause of numerous details of the nurses.
Over the past five years, five nurses of the hospital have contracted the disease, four have so far passed away and the fifth was scurried out of the country in time to seek life- saving medication.
The nurses have pinned the blame of all those deaths on the installation of a medical facility called the CT Scan close to the Injection Room of the hospital where all the departed nurses worked. According to the nurses, there is a widely held view that the CT Scan machine, which was installed at the hospital some five years ago, emits some waves that cause cancer.
The nurses said, there was no provision for that CT Scan in the initial building plan of the hospital and its later construction and proximity to the Injection Room was the result of the cancer that has affiliated those nurses who coincidentally worked there.
According to the health workers, following the initial deaths at the hospital, they lodged a complaint with the hospital authorities who then invited officials at the Atomic Energy Commission to check if, indeed, the CT Scan emits any radiation or any other waves that can cause cancer.
After the inspection, the officials of Atomic Commission concluded that the scan did not emit any radiation and, therefore, was not the cause of the deaths at the hospital.
However, the nurses maintained that the machine causes the cancer and that the Atomic Commission has either done a shoddy job or does not have the capacity to detect the waves.
Therefore, most nurses are alleged to have refused postings to the Injection Room of the hospital and those who are already there were said to have been angling for a departure to a different department or even contemplating leaving the hospital for good.
When contacted, General Manager/ Medical of the hospital, Dr Darius Osei, said that the operators of the machine could not be working at the risk of their lives, if the suspicions were true.
He said some of the staff, like the paramedics and cashiers were those whose offices were within the close proximity but nothing had happened to them adding that even the radiologists, who have been working on it till date, have done so without any harmful effect.
According to him, under normal circumstances they should have been the first victims and not the four departed nurses.
“From what I know radiation rather cures some cancer cells but does not cause cancer,” he said.
According to him, of indeed all the four nurses died out of cancer, then it would be important to find out what type of cancer it is since there are various types of cancer including breast cancer and cervical cancer.
He reiterated that the nurses may be exposed to some other things which they (hospital authorities) may not be aware of.
The hospital administrator, Kwabena Adumoah confirmed that four nurses had died, all from the injection room which is next to the room where the CT Scan is but that the first two nurses died before the machine was introduced and therefore their deaths could not be linked to the machine, adding that the hospital would ask the Ghana Energy Commission to conduct the annual checks on the machine and officially write to the hospital to dispel the rumours that are circulating.
