Leadership of the Ghana Registered Nurses and Midwives Association (GRNMA) in the Kassena-Nankana Municipality of the Upper East Region has presented Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) to the War Memorial Hospital to support service delivery.
The items, which included boxes of face masks, gloves and disinfectants among other hospital consumables, followed reported cases of COVID-19 in the facility where about 15 members of the Association were infected, leading to the death of one, while several others were in isolation.
Speaking in an interview at the hospital after a brief meeting to handover the items, Mr Habib Mahama, the Municipal Chairman of the GRNMA, said the welfare of members was critical to the Association.
“As an Association, when we heard of the sad news of the demise of our colleague, we came around, engaged management of the hospital, and realized that they had some logistics constraints to protect our members.”
“Based on that, we as an Association decided to mobilize some resources and also sent out appeals to some philanthropists and organizations to support the hospital with some PPE, so that staff and patients in the facility will be safe from the virus.”
The Chairman thanked management and staff of the GCB Bank at Navrongo for supporting the Association with disinfectants to present to the hospital.
Mr. Mahama appealed to management of the hospital to continue to ensure save environment for nurses and midwives, to deliver health care services to clients.
He said the facility was fumigated and was safe for their members to work.
“We are calling on our members to try and put the panic and fear aside as measures have been put in place for a safe environment for us to provide services.”
“So far, some of our members are at work, and those that still entertain fears, we are reaching out to them as an Association to return to work, but I can confirm that our members are fully at work and providing services to the public,” Mr Mahama said.
Mr. Bentie Abubakari, the Administrator of the War Memorial Hospital, thanked leadership of the GRNMA in the Municipality for the gesture and urged members of the Association to remain steadfast and defend the service despite all odds.
“You should not withdraw your services, don’t give up the fight against COVID-19, but demonstrate the zeal as professionals,” he said.
Mr. Abubakari also appealed to government, Non-Governmental Organizations, philanthropists and individuals to support the hospital with PPE for service delivery, “We need more PPE because we use a lot of them on daily basis.”
