Ghana’s COVID-19 case monitoring is most likely to suffer trouble as a result of the limited number of frontline health workers.
The health advisor at the Presidency, Dr. Anthony Nsiah Asare on Accra based radion Station, disclosed that Ghana lacked sufficient doctors and registered nurses to take care of individuals infected with COVID-19 throughout the country.
“We do not have enough physical care physicians, we do not have enough physical care nurses. These are the two main important personnel we need for ICU care,” he said.
Dr. Nsiah-Asare, however, said more health workers will be trained and deployed to the isolation centres.
“We have medical officers who have been trained and residents who are also under training, who are all helping. Luckily, all the student nurses who are doing intensive care at Korle Bu have all been subscripted and are also working. For nurses, we can always train them on the job,” he added.
The health advisor at the Presidency also clarified that COVID-19 cases in Ghana crossed the 10,000 mark due to enhanced tracing and testing.
He intimated that although the new figure is alarming, a consideration of both the regional and daily increases in COVID-19 figures prove that Ghana is doing well in terms of containing the virus.
“The cumulative figures will go up because even if it is 10,000 today, if you test ten people, you will get 10,010, so when we continue testing, the figures will definitely go up, but the most important thing is to look at the daily increases in the figures, that to me is the most important and we also should look at the regional increase.”
“If you look at the regional increase, which region has added any case and which region has not added any case, some of the regions for some time now are not adding any case which gives us some comfort. But I will say comfort with my teeth in my mouth because you also have to be on the guard.”
Ghana’s COVID-19 cases crossing the 10,000 mark has triggered conversations about the essence of lifting restrictions on movements in parts of the country.
