Health workers in Isiolo are a worried lot over a surge in Covid-19 infections and poor working conditions.
The frontline health workers are at high risk of contracting the disease while handling patients with various symptoms and have lamented that hospitals were no longer safe.
Close to 40 health care workers have already contracted the deadly disease with nearly 10, who recently contracted the disease, having isolated at their homes according to a senior health official not authorized to address media.
And while Governor Mohamed Kuti government has been providing them with protective equipment, it is not done regularly and the provisions are of poor quality.
The workers, months ago, while protesting the death of nurse Pauline Nunu who succumbed to Covid-19 complications, said the masks that they were being provided with were of poor quality and that an independent team from the Ministry of Health had confirmed so.
“There are preferred masks for health workers but the county has been providing us with the normal ones which do not offer maximum protection from the disease,” a nurse stationed at Garbatulla Hospital said.
The health workers told the Press Point that they were warned never to address journalists for spilling the beans during the nurse’s death where they said the ICU was not functional due to lack of enough personnel and subsidiary equipment.
Despite being warned by Deputy Governor Issa Abdi, Health Executive Wario Galma and Ibrahim Alio not to address journalists who had camped outside at the ICU facility, the health workers defied the orders and candidly told the world of the then pathetic situation at the facility.
“Like you can see, I am a young worker and I do not want to lose my job but the truth is that we are working in pathetic conditions and we are suffering but what can we do?” posed one of the staff at Isiolo Referral Hospital.
The workers lamented over biased promotions saying the process was tribal and politicized and that those who benefited were cronies to some senior health officials.
“You will hear them (health officials) boasting of having promoted over 60 percent of us but a keen look at the promotions will bring forth the issue of clannism and favoritism,” a nurse who sought anonymity said.
Their biggest concern, the health workers say, is unqualified colleagues who continue to risk the lives of the residents, especially at the Referral Hospital. Some of the quacks supervise their qualified colleagues, the workers claimed.
