The Guild of Medical Directors (GMD) is making a fresh case for private medical practitioners to be provided with sufficient personal protective equipment (PPE) to enable them tackle the coronavirus pandemic effectively.
The GMD is distressed by the increasing deaths among its members from exposure to coronavirus (Covid-19) infection.
Three private medical practitioners have already lost their lives after treating patients for other ailments, not knowing they were Covid-19 asymptomatic (not showing symptoms),according to the President of GMD, Professor Femi Babalola.
He also told the federal government that some of the coronavirus cases traced to private hospitals got there indirectly because the patients approached the doctors with ailments other than Covid-19.
“In previous meetings with the Ministry of Health, private hospitals have stressed that they are in the frontline of the battle against the COVID-19 epidemic. This is for the simple reason that private hospitals account for not less than 70 percent of consultations in the country,” he said in a statement.
“It is therefore, inevitable that some patients with the disease will turn up in private hospitals. Unfortunately, many of them will be asymptomatic carriers of the disease. The instruction we have been given by the Ministry of Health is to refer such cases as soon as we identify them, or suspect them to be Covid-19 cases.
“This is all very well, and not contested by the Guild. But usually before a patient can be identified as a Covid-19 suspect, some interaction would inevitably have occurred with such patients, in the form of history taking and examination.
“Also, if a doctor, following this interaction, suspects that a patient might be a Covid-19 case, there is invariably a time lag between the time of suspicion and the time when NCDC officials arrive to take samples for confirmatory testing.
“This is compounded by the fact that some patients disguise their true travel history, in an attempt to avoid stigmatization.
“As we speak, three of our members have died – Dr. Aliyu Yakubu, Dr. Dominic Essien, and Dr. Emeka Chugbo, not because they necessarily want to treat Covid-19 patients as the impression may have been given, but because they inevitably came across these patients in the course of their duties.”
Credit: thenationonlineng.net
