The Nigerian Medical Association is mobilising resources in “cash and kind” to provide protective gear and consumables to help private health facilities it says are on their own.
It said private hospitals have been “seemingly abandoned by public authorities to practice infection-prevention-and-control for their safety and protection of their staff, patients and the public.”
It comes amidst concern that much of the distribution of much of the donated protective gear is targeted at public hospitals.
A total 264 doctors are working in Covid-19 situations in isolation and treatment centres.
Twenty of them have contracted the virus, three have died and two recovered.
NMA president Francis Faduyile said “NMA acknowledges that contracting the virus from patients with the highly contagious COVID-19 is feasible even with the best of conditions due to the inevitability of close contacts with the sick,”
“The Association however restates that the occurrence could be reduced with strict adherence to the global best practice of Infection Prevention and Control (IPC) protocols.
“Availability of personal protective equipment (PPE) in adequate quality and quantity, amenities like running water, enabling environment in the health service space and spirit lifting motivation and incentives can mitigate hazardous environments, reduce drastically the incidence of nosocomial infections and engender a hazard-free health service environment.”
