Members of the Public Services Association (PSA), led by union president Watson Duke, yesterday staged a protest to highlight that not enough is being done to treat with Ebola. Workers from the health sector, Airports Authority, Immigration and Customs officers held a placard demonstration in front the Ebola Isolation Unit at Caura Hospital calling on Health Minister Fuad Khan to open the facility to the media to show its readiness.
Scaffolding was outside and workmen were still painting the buildings which houses the isolation unit. Duke said, “While they’ve given out protective suits, they haven’t been given any training.“Based on WHO (World Health Organisation) standards, persons must be trained, practice in what they’ve been trained in, and must develop competence before they’re certified as part of an Ebola response team.
“When the health care providers put on the suits, it’s under supervision. It has been discovered that most health care workers have become infected by self contamination. “Where is the decontamination area? When they leave that isolation unit how do they perform decontamination procedures on themselves?” He said the laboratories in Caura Hospital and the Eric Williams Medical Sciences Complex (EWMCS), Mt Hope, were not certified by WHO as level four laboratories to diagnose Ebola.
Duke said the Ebola isolation facility’s air-condition units did not create negative pressure necessary for isolating air to prevent it from escaping the building. He said during Carnival the streets are packed, and Ebola can be transmitted in sweat, spittle and urine.
EWMSC, Caura ready—NCRHA spokesman
A spokesman from the North Central Regional Health Authority countered Duke’s claims and said there were “don and duff” decontamination areas at the hospital. The spokesman said Caura Hospital and EWMCS also had new incinerators to dispose of bio-medical waste and contaminated clothing.
According to the official, a bio-containment unit was procured for Caura and was scheduled to be deployed shortly. The spokesman said nurses and doctors have been training with staff and with the arrival of hazmat suits next week, they will receive training in their use.
The official said the reason for not ordering the hazmat suits sooner was that when a nurse contracted Ebola in the US, there were further reports from the CDC (Centres for Disease Control and Prevention) that the masks health workers were using were not the proper ones.
The spokesman said when the CDC changed its guidelines, the ministry stopped its first order and went with the new CDC guidelines. The Ebola isolation units will have negative pressure and will also be fully air conditioned because operating in hazmat suits can raise body temperatures and a person can only be in the hazmut suit for a specific amount of time, the official said.