Health Minister Says He Does Not Know Covid-19 Frontline  Workers

Health Minister, Kweku Agyemang Manu, has confessed today that he and his Ministry are not very clear in their minds who a frontline Covid-19 health worker is, weeks after announcing Insurance packages for frontline Covid-19 Health workers.
 
Interacting with health workers at the Greater Accra Regional Hospital on Wednesday, Mr. Agyemang Manu said his inability to sift between a COVID-19 frontline health worker and one that is not, has constrained him to wait for modalities that are being developed to define who a frontline health worker is.
 
The revelation shocked some doctors, nurses and ancillary staff at the Greater Accra Regional Hospital who the Minister had stopped over to interact with.
 
The question about who a frontline health worker arose when a staff with the Emergency Department of the Hospital asked for clarification, saying he did not understand why staffs at the Emergency Unit are not classified as frontline health workers.
 
For the questioner, the logic is that in their line of work they are very likely to encounter COVID-19 patients and therefore deserve to be categorized among the frontline health workers given special insurance coverage and other motivational perks.
 
However, the Minister said it has increasingly become more difficult to define who a frontline health worker is and that modalities that are being developed will make this clear.
 
Meanwhile, Hon. Agyemang Manu also said 10,000 health workers are currently under special Covid-19 insurance package instituted for them by Government. Under the package, he said the family of every health worker who loses his or her life from COVID-19 infections through care for patients will receive Ghc300,000.
 
If the health worker who catches the disease through care for a patient does not die but recovers, he or she will be entitled to Ghc10,000.
 
The Health Minister also said Government is now distributing PPEs directly to hospitals which need them the most, without following any bureaucratic distribution model because the bureaucracy tends to make it difficult for institutions which really need the PPEs to get them.