Covid-19: GMA Warns Hospital and Clinic Staff Are Outstretched

The Ghana Medical Association (GMA) is warning that the government has let down its guard against the Covid-19 disease, consequently leading to a jump in the number of new infections putting medical staff under pressure.

Deputy General Secretary of the GMA, Dr. Titus Beyuo confirmed Accra based 3 FM.

“ I can confirm that staff are being stretched, our treatment centers are being stretched, there is no denying that fact. Over the weekend I had calls from colleagues, I had calls from friends and families who have been trying to get to some places but it has not been easy,” he said.

“When we say stretched, it doesn’t mean they are all full to capacity and cannot admit but the human resource for instance is a big challenge. In the initial phase of our reforms, we mobilized staff from other hospitals to the treatment centers to provide services and a lot of these people have become fatigued after maintaining the fight”. 

Ghana’s Covid-19 current figures stand at 1,267 with 338 deaths.

Frighteningly, Dr. Beyuo reveals that a missing link appears to have developed at the end of private laboratories that are supposed to feed Covid-19 test results to a national database. However, because the process is not working many Covid-19 positive people have been left wandering within the public space freely.

“Over the weekend I have had more than 7 people calling me, they have gone to private labs or even some government labs gotten themselves tested because they were symptomatic. They got their results they were positive and now they don’t know what to do next because they are not hooked unto the system, nobody is following them up” he complained.

Around the world, countries are frantically preparing for what has been described as a second wave of Covid-19 with many European countries, including the UK, Germany and Spain instituting lockdown measures.

However, in Ghana, even the mask-wearing protocol has become lax.