COVID-19+ HEALTH WORKERS FEEL DESERTED

MBABANE – The Ministry of Health is housing healthcare workers, who are self-isolating after testing positive for COVID-19, in hotels and lodges.

The healthcare workers, who include nurses and doctors, are currently sheltered at Siteki Hotel as they recuperate from the novel coronavirus.

Currently, there are 16 healthcare workers who have tested positive for COVID-19. They include nurses who work at RFM Hospital, a nursing assistant who was working at the Out Patient Department (OPD), and support staff members.
Minister of Health Lizzie Nkosi confirmed that the healthcare workers were isolated in hotels. The minister said the ministry did this deliberately to give them (healthcare employees) some distance because they needed it.

She said the employees dealt with illnesses on a daily basis and when they slept next to patients, they would not be able to recuperate fully because they (patients) would now and again ask medical questions regarding their illness, when they too should be recovering.

 
Separation

“We did this to give them the space and separation from their work,” Nkosi said.
She explained that while they were sleeping on their hospital beds, they were also being equipped. The minister disclosed that the ministry was roping in personnel to train the healthcare workers because it wanted to ensure that they were using the right personal protective equipment (PPE), and correctly.

“We needed to do this, to give them the space required to look after themselves,” the minister alluded.  Despite the minister’s sentiments, the medical personnel who tested positive for the novel coronavirus feel neglected.
Some of the personnel, who spoke to this publication on condition of anonymity, said the Ministry of Health had neglected them. This, they claimed, was because they were not offered the same medical attention that was given to the patients who were admitted to the Lubombo Referral Hospital.

An example of the discrepancy, according to the nurses, was that since their specimen had tested positive, they were supposed to have blood tests and an X-ray to determine how the virus had affected them. To date, the medical staff said they had not been taken to the Lubombo Referral Hospital to do the  x-rays. They claimed that communication shared with them was to the effect that there was no transport to ferry them.

“This is disheartening because there is a bus parked at the Lubombo Referral Hospital which was used to transport patients to their various destinations after being released from the hospital,” one nurse said. Another nurse added that the medical treatment that was being offered to them was no longer the same to that which was administered to the first few coronavirus patients.

Injected

 The nurse said the first group of patients who ended up being released from the hospital were also injected with azithromicin, gentamicin and zinc.
 “Since we were admitted, we’ve not been offered the same treatment. Some of us have not been offered zinc while others have not been given the gentamicin,” the nurse said.

This, the health practitioner said, would lead to them not recuperating early and having the disease not detected in their body. President of the Swaziland Democratic Nurses Union (SWADNU), Bheki Mamba, said this was daunting to them as a cadre.
He said they were discouraging what government was allegedly doing – neglecting the healthcare workers at their hour of need.

“The nurses sacrificed their lives for the country and should be taken care of and given what is happening, we’ll report it to the World Health Organisation (WHO),” Mamba said.  The nurses’ leader further vouched that they would seek medication and treatment to assist their cadre wherever they could.

On the other hand, the Ministry of Health’s Director of Health Services, Dr Vusi Magagula, said he would investigate this and get to the bottom of it. He said as this was a novel virus, they were aware that there were challenges but they anticipated that they would be minimal.

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