Some nurses of the Federal Medical Centre, Abeokuta, Ogun state have
been seen wearing polythene bags to prevent themselves from being
infected by a suspected case of COVID-19 discovered in the facility.
Recall
that two persons, including a pregnant woman who died on Saturday,
tested positive for the infection in the hospital. The second case, a
97-year-old man, had been transferred to the Ogun state COVID-19
isolation centre in Ikene. Moreover, some of the health workers who came
in contact with those infected have been told to isolate.
This
paper gathered that one of the medical doctors who came in contact with
the aged man, Mr Ashimi, has also been transferred to Ikene for
isolation.
Accordingly, the Emergency Treatment Room (ETR) and
the Gynecology Emergency unit, where the confirmed cases were earlier
admitted, have been closed down for fumigation.
On Monday, two
women admitted at Female Medical ward were suspected to have contracted
the disease after showing symptoms. This caused an uproar at the
facility with the health workers of the affected unit demanding for
Personal Protective Equipment (PPE), a protective gear recommended for
the treatment of infectious diseases.
POLITICS NIGERIA
understands that the nurses had to improvise with the waste bags after
the management denied them the PPE on Monday afternoon.
Later on,
some public health practitioners protested the irregularities when they
saw their colleagues on the materials. However, the spokesperson of the
hospital, Orisaju Segun, denied knowledge of the incident when this
paper contacted him on Monday.
Also, the head of the nursing
department claimed the information about the non-provision of PPE is
false. “That is not true. They were not denied PPE,” She told POLITICS
NIGERIA.
Meanwhile, when she could not explain what led to the
nurses putting on a polythene bag, she promised our reporter that the
issue will be investigated.
Reacting to this, the President of
the National Association of Nigerian Nurses and Midwives (NANNM),
Adeniji AbdulRafiu expressed surprise in a telephone interview with
POLITICS NIGERIA.
“I am surprised that a nurse will agree to wear a polythene bag. This really baffles me,” He said.
Mr AbdulRafiu also promised to do a thorough finding to get more information about the situation.
He
then stated that nurses who allow such are doing that at the detriment
of their lives. ” We have told them not to work if adequate preparations
are not made,” the national President emphasised.
