Ghana’s medical fraternity has been thrown into a state of panic as they lose a renowned neurosurgeon due to poor resourcing of medical personnel by the government to be able to handle the deadly Covid-19 coronavirus threat facing them.
Last week, one Professor Goodrich is reported to have died from Covid-19.
“This man had led teams to do this surgery over and over again and succeeded. All over the world, neurosurgeons use his protocols to do this surgery. He had been on a ventilator until yesterday in the morning. And then he could carry on no further. All his expertise. All his humanity. All his knowledge, taken away by COVID 19,” one Dr Teddy Totimeh from the Ridge Hospital in Accra wrote in an open letter copied to media houses.
“A top doctor, in one of the world’s most advanced critical care standards had become a casualty in a battle that is real,” he wrote in lamentation at the plight faced by Ghanaian doctors as they are thrust onto the frontline of the Covid-19 fight with poor resources and ill-preparedness.
So far, two nurses from the premier teaching hospital at Korle-Bu, two medical doctors at the Ledzokuku Municipal Hospital (LEKMA Hospital) at Teshie in Accra and a specialist Anesthetist at the Greater Accra Regional Hospital (Ridge Hospital), have all reportedly contracted the disease.
“It is not real here yet. It is almost as if we have not seen the havoc that it has wreaked across the world. We are playing with fire, whilst waiting for the fire truck to arrive. There are lessons we should have learnt long ago, but time has run out,” the angry doctor fired.
In confirmation to the panic in the medical field, doctors are threatening to stay home in fear of contracting the deadly disease.
Some nurses at the Korle-Bu Teaching Hospital have issued warnings to hospital management that they will stay home if they continue to deceive them about resourcing them with appropriate Personal Protective Equipment (PPE).
According to the nurses, despite assurances by authorities in terms of insurance packages, their concerns have not been addressed as personal protective equipment (PPEs), for instance, are not available. Doctors in that department have also complained about the lack of proper isolation centres for the COVID-19 patients.
Earlier, medical staff at the emergency department of the premier hospital also threatened to stay home for what they called lip-service in resourcing them to be able to effectively fight the global pandemic.
All these revelations are coming barely two days after President Akufo Addo and his administration have been praised by all political parties for effectively fighting the Covid-19 outbreak in Ghana.
Frontline doctors and other medical personnel are complaining that the reality in hospitals are way different from the official narrative.
Already, Ghana has recorded over 214 cases in less than one month and counting. Five people have officially been confirmed to have died so far from the number of infections.