Korle-Bu doctors want to be tested for coronavirus

Doctors at the Department of Accident and Emergency at the Korle-Bu Teaching Hospital are demanding a proper isolation center from the management of the state’s foremost referral hospital in the handling and treatment of the deadly COVID-19 cases.

The Herald’s independent findings are that the first patient who was sent to the Korle-Bu Teaching Hospital was left on the sideway of the department unbeknown to many of the medial doctors and other health professional that the person had coronavirus.

It’s feared that many of the staff of the Accident and Emergency Department as well as other patients and their visitors have had contacts with the COVID-19 victim and might have contracted the disease.

The recklessness with which COVID-19 patient was handled has left the doctors saying in a memo to their Head of Department that “we also wish to express our displeasure with the events surrounding the hospital’s first confirmed case.”

In this regard, they want a quick testing of all staff of the department for Coronavirus as well as an immediate closure of the ER for fumigation.

In the memo quoted by Accra-based Citi News, the health workers, who are under the Ministry Health and the Ghana Health Service, also called for the necessary Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) as they come into contact with victims of COVID-19.

The medical practitioners, who have seen their colleagues in other countries die from the global pandemic while treating patients, are worried about the usage of the sideward in the premier hospital, as an isolation center without the necessary PPEs, and have threatened to lay down their tools.

They are dissatisfied with the level of preparedness of Korle-Bu Teaching Hospital in combating the fasting-spreading COVID-19 pandemic.

According to Citi News, the doctors in the memo stated “We write to express our general dissatisfaction with the preparedness or lack thereof of the department to combat the current COVID-19 pandemic”, adding “we also wish to express our displeasure with the events surrounding the hospital’s first confirmed case.”

“Firstly, the pandemic; an existential threat to us, you will agree has to be handled with decisiveness and transparency. It is based on this that, we are aghast at the actions or inactions taken before, during and after the case had been confirmed.”

The said ward, according to the doctors hosted the first patient who tested positive at the Korle-Bu Teaching Hospital.

In this regard, they are threatening to withdraw their services if a proper isolation center is not provided and a quick testing of all staff of the department for Coronavirus is not done.

“We will like to remind management of the department that, it has failed woefully in providing adequate protection for the staff and as such, we’re left with little choice than to resort to protecting ourselves in the face of clear and present danger”.

“We will like to state; with no fear of equivocation that, if these measures are not put in place, we will be forced to stop attending to patients to the endangerment of the patients, ourselves, our loved ones, and Ghana as a whole,” portions of the memo said.

The doctors demanded provision of appropriate PPEs; including N-95 face masks, provision of a proper isolation unit for suspected cases in lieu of the current, sideward we use at ‘yellow’ and also expediting the testing of all staff of the department for SARS-Cov2

The medical officers also want the Korle-Bu Teaching Hospital to create “clear channels of communication between management and the staff of the department; in order to prevent the events surrounding the first confirmed case from happening again and the immediate closure of the ER for fumigation.

The World Health Organisation has already stressed the importance of the Personal Protective Equipment amid shortages in some of the worst-hit countries by the virus.

Meanwhile, the Shai-Osudoku District hospital within the Shai-Osudoku District in the Greater Accra Region has constructed a five-man capacity isolation centre to handle Coronavirus patients.

The facility was funded from the hospital’s internally generated fund and was spearheaded by Dr Ken Brightson, Director at the Hospital.