The Medical Superintendent of the West Gonja Hospital in Damongo, Dr Vitalis Saadaare has bemoaned the negative attitudes put up by families of patients who died of confirmed positive Covid-19 cases.
He said family members of a patient few weeks ago broke down the gate to the hospital’s morgue, attacked the security and forcefully demanded for the body of the deceased for burial after the family was informed about the patient’s death. The hospital management then had to call the police command to rescue the situation. This attitude with the situation is dangerous for our health because people still believe that Covid-19 is not real. So anytime one is confirmed dead of Covid-19, many family members don’t still believe.
Some people have accused the management of the hospital of intentionally declaring people Covid-19 positive to get more money from government.
Dr Vitalis Saadaare refuted this allegations and said since the outbreak of the Covid-19, the hospital staff have not received any pesewas from central government. He said the hospital staff are not happy because since March 2020, the health ministry is yet to pay any Covid-19 allowances due health personnel at the hospital. Few staff who suffered positive Covid-19 cases have not received any insurance package from any insurance company. This is sad, he added.
Dr Vitalis also explained that there is no more vigorous contact tracing as it used to be in the past. Currently, when you bring a patient to the hospital and he is confirmed positive of Covid-19, the caretaker is advised to go back to the house and observe the Covid-19 protocols for 14 days. After the 14th day, if there are no symptoms then the case ends there.
He appealed to the Department of Social Welfare to help identify some Community Undertakers, train them to always perform the burial processes since the people don’t have much trust in the workers of the Social Welfare Department.
padfm.com.gh / Abdulai Zulkaninu
