COVID-19: How health workers work under pressure at Abuja isolation centres

Medical and non-medical staff   tending to coronavirus (COVID-19) patients at the isolation centre at the University of Abuja Teaching Hospital (UATH)  Gwagwalada, Abuja began work there two months ago. They work for close to 22 hours a day under pressure without any life insurance coverage or allowance and incentives paid to them. As the number […]

Medical and non-medical staff   tending to coronavirus (COVID-19) patients at the isolation centre at the University of Abuja Teaching Hospital (UATH)  Gwagwalada, Abuja began work there two months ago.

They work for close to 22 hours a day under pressure without any life insurance coverage or allowance and incentives paid to them.

As the number of confirmed cases continues to rise in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), more patients are admitted at the centre and their workload increase.

Daily Trust Saturday learned that long before confirmed cases of COVID-19 were recorded in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), the centre was receiving suspected cases of the disease.

These cases are kept at the centre for a day or two while they await the results.

They are then allowed to go home when they test negative.

However, the workers at the centre continue to call and keep in touch with the cases thereafter till after fourteen days when they are officially discharged.

Those who test positive are immediately admitted at the UATH isolation centre, Daily Trust Saturday gathered.

The workers have also attended to positive COVID-19 patients admitted at the centre since the outbreak in Abuja.

They now attend to over forty confirmed cases admitted at the centre against the eighteen admitted there a fortnight ago.

The National Hospital, Abuja commenced its isolation centre some weeks ago, and the staff there also work round the clock and are not covered by life insurance or paid allowances too.

An ambulance arrived with additional patients for the UATH isolation centre on Wednesday, but the reporter could not confirm their number as at press time.

Once the health workers wear their protective suits and go into the centre, they don’t come out again till the end of their work.

Our investigations revealed that the workers are so busy round the clock that they do not pick calls from family members or anyone else till they come out.

A source at the centre said they also don’t go into the centre with their phones because of the risk of infection, and continue to work till they come out and sometimes see over 40 missed calls on their phones.

The source said they work for long hours and under such pressure that two of the 13 original staff drawn from the UATH hospital fell ill.

“We became afraid that they had contracted the virus. We sent people to the Federal Ministry of Health to inform them, but no one came to see us or as much as send a message to us till the blood samples of the staff taken for tests came out negative for COVID-19,” the source said.

Another source said a team of volunteers  were being expected from the Federal Capital Administration  (FCTA)  and  Irrua  Specialist Hospital, Edo state to assist with the growing work at the centre