COVID-19 strikes down 32 nurses, midwives; 250 others quarantined – GRNMA

Some 32 Ghanaian nurses and midwives are down with COVID-19 while hundreds of their colleagues have also been quarantined following exposure to the virus, the President of the Ghana Registered and Midwives Association (GRNMA), Mrs Perpetual Ofori-Ampofo has revealed on the sidelines of the launch of the 60th-anniversary celebration of the association on Wednesday, 13 May 2020, which marks the international day for nurses.

This year’s celebration is on the theme: “Nursing the world to health, projecting the true value of Ghanaian nurses and midwives.”

“At the moment, we have 32 nurses and midwives who have been infected by the coronavirus”, she told ABC News, adding: “We have over 250 under quarantine. They are being managed at different levels. Some of them are at the treatment centres. For those under quarantine, some are at home, some are in guest houses and hotels, and so on”.

“We are reaching out to them and we hope that things will get better,” she said.

She also noted that a potpourri of issues is affecting their efforts at fighting the virus.

“The challenges we are facing is that we don’t have adequate PPE and we hope that we would get the equipment we need to protect ourselves and the patients and clients we take care of,” Mrs Ofori-Ampofo said.

“Government runs its government, we run our union and we know what our members are going through. Once we don’t have adequate PPE we are still battling with low salaries and so on, those are big issues that need to be addressed. There are those sitting at home waiting to be employed and those working without allowances,” she added.