Treat us better, say nurses
By LULU MARK
NURSES are concerned that they are being discriminated against and treated unfairly as frontline responders to the Covid-19 pandemic.
Sister Veronica Wohuinangu, the Port Moresby General Hospital critical care nursing coordinator, said for example, a nurse was forced to be tested for the Covid-19, while another could not go home because the family feared she might have contracted the virus.
She said even some nurses’ spouses had been laid off by their employers because of the fear of transmitting the virus.
She urged health authorities to provide quarantine facilities as some nurses had to sleep at the hospital car park last week because they could not go home.
Health Minister Jelta Wong said the Government was working on a package to help the nurses.
“We know there’s a lot of stigma out there. We know there are nurses who are not allowed back home,” he said.
“We are all trying to mitigate this.”
Wong told a meeting of the PNG Nurses Association yesterday that that they should refuse to work if they were not supplied personal protective equipment (PPE).
“(If) you do not have the PPE, please don’t go to work,” Wong said.
He said provincial health authorities had been given PPEs because there was a lot in stock.
Sr Wohuinangu said the PPE s never reached the frontline workers. She said nurses last Wednesday had to attend to a patient requiring nebulizer at the hospital emergency ward, who was transferred to the intensive care unit.
“The nurses were performing these procedures without any PPEs,” she said.
The nurses were only informed of the patient’s Covid-19 status hours later, meaning they did not know they had been exposed to the virus.
“The frontline health workers were never protected and now maybe we are all persons of interest,” she said.
Sr Wohuinangu said there were loopholes in leadership and governance at the hospital and the Health Department.
10 comments
this is all to familiar and a disgrace to the dedicated health workers who should be accorded the respect they properly deserve. wake up GoPNG.
I just hope the people in authority put yourselves in their shoes to feel how they are feeling. This is a total disgrace to the health authorities to drag their feet on the plight of this truly humble and dedicated fronliners whose lives are at risk. May God bless them for their humble and dedicated service under trying circumstances.
That implies to all front line health workers all around the PNG.
Treat them better.
Yours in Health FRONTIERS..
That’s the priorities the government should look into and provide facilities that are needed in such time of coving 19.
This is a disgrace to our front line health workers. Please just simply do not go to work if there is no personal protective equipment provided. We are not in a communist country.!!! Your life is important than anything else. What a heal government is doing to save our health workers during this critical time.!!!
To combat the deadly Covid 19, the frontline responder urgently and compulsory needed to be well equipped with all necessary PPE. Whoever Authority is responsible for PPE distribution must pull up your socks in this dire and unprecedented time.
What happened to the millions of kina budgeted to fight Covid19 earlier this year? Please use that money to help protect our frontline health workers, particularly nurses. What will happen if all the nurses quit, how can the government run the hospitals, clinics etc..please be sensible, this is a serious matter and must be addressed immediately given this time of urgency where service of the nurses is paramount..
Too much money went around during the state of emergency & where did it end up? It’s a sad state of affairs when this group of people who sacrifice their lives to care for the sick don’t get the required protection with ppe. Minister Wong, where do you stand in this most vital subject? Are you real?
The health workers should be the first people to be equipped with PPE’s to combat the virus…
The prime minister JM is responsible far all these. By now all flights should be closed even it is important.
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