The Ghana Health Service (GHS) has announced that it has initiated processes to uncover the reason behind the increasing numbers of health workers contracting the novel coronavirus disease.
Even though these workers deal directly with infected patients in their various facilities, the Director-General of GHS, Dr. Patrick Aboagye says there is a possibility that some may have been infected within their various communities, hence the probe.
Some few weeks ago, the Ghana Registered Nurses and Midwives Association disclosed that 32 of their members had tested positive for the disease with over 250 more under mandatory quarantine.
As recent as last week, 43 health workers in the Western Region were reportedly confirmed positive for the disease. Additionally, the Eastern Region has recorded 15 of such cases with the Ashanti Region also recording 30 of them.
Speaking in an interview, Dr. Aboagye stressed that the workers do not always get infected in specialized centres.
“Apart from being at high risk of being infected at work, health workers are also part of our community so they could also pick it up just like any other person so we are evaluating all that. We have an insurance package for those that are infected so it is important that we track them. So we are doing further investigations to also look at what is going on,” he said.
“The most important thing is we have some health workers that are affected and that is why the numbers are going up. It’s a cumulative figure that continues to add up. It’s not like these are new cases that have come up. It’s not all the time that they go to isolation or treatment centres to get infected. A case may just pop up and infect the worker,” Dr. Aboagye intimated.
Source: abcnewsgh
