Health workers avoid patients like a plague in Lagos isolation ward

                                                            Lagos Isolation ward

Health workers at the Yaba Mainland Hospital, Lagos have been running away from patients isolated in the hospital. Some of them are already avoiding the patients like a plague. Lagos State Commissioner for Health, Dr. Jide Idris said

“Because of the fear of Ebola, everybody seems to be scared, nobody wants to assist, which is a major challenge.It is even more so for the treatment isolation ward. It’s a major problem because a lot of people ran away, especially when the nurse died.”

A senior medical practioner at the hospital said .....

''The pressure is too much for us; we have been working for 24 hours instead of the statutory eight hours because of inadequate manpower as a result of the ongoing doctors’ strike and other health workers that have been reluctant to move near the patients.We have been relying on volunteers who have been helping us to carry out some of our responsibilities here.

Our family members too have been panicking and putting pressure on us as a result of our insistence to continue to manage the carriers of Ebola virus; they are nursing the fear that we may contract the disease as many of them have insisted that we resign our appointments. One major aspect of the issue is the stigmatisation. Our neighbours have also been stigmatising us; they believe that because of the fact that Ebola patients are being managed here, they think we might have contracted the virus.”

Source: Punch