As part of effort to curb the spread of the covid-19 virus, more than three thousand primary healthcare workers have received protective gears from the government of Cross River State in south-south Nigeria.
Dr. Betta Edu, the Commissioner for Health and Chairman of the Cross River Covid-19 Taskforce, presented the items to the Director General of the Primary Healthcare Development Agency, Dr. Janet Ekpenyong.
The personal protective equipment consists of over 6,000 surgical gowns, face shields, nose mask, goggles and gloves.
“The Cross River State Ministry of Health is distributing protective equipment to health workers across the state. We are distributing about 5,000 PPEs across the state.
One health worker will have double sets, so, each health workers should have many PPEs in every of our facilities.
These are supposed to go around all the primary health facilities in the state. We are also going to send to secondary health facilities in Cross River.
We are in the second wave of the covid-19 pandemic and this wave has affected many health workers already,” noted the Commissioner.
She stated, “we want to be able to protect our health workers at the front line providing quality services to our people. Cross River State has always been proactive to the needs of our health workers and the people”.
Partnering NCDC
The Chairman of the State Covid-19 task force hinted that Cross River was partnering the Nigerian Government through the National Centre for Disease Control and the Presidential Taskforce on Covid-19 to reestablish its destroyed testing laboratories.
Edu, who lamented the destruction of the covid-19 laboratories in Cross River and the 100 hundred bed isolation centre, said “we are engaging the federal government to get our molecular laboratories and 100 bed isolation centre back on track.
Remember that the isolation centre and laboratories were vandalized by hoodlums during the last ENDSARs protest. So, we want to get the reference laboratories back on track”.
On efforts to enforce compliance, the Health Commissioner noted that besides using the mobile courts for wearing of nose mask, the team was on monitoring to ensure people comply with social distancing and handwashing regulations in public spaces.
“My advice to residents is simple, protect yourselves and family from covid-19. Do not take things for granted. This is not the time to roam from one party to another. It is a time to stay back in your safe zone, use your nose mask, wash your hands regularly and use hand sanitizers as often as possible,” she appealed.
Assisting the workers
Responding after receiving the items, Dr. Janet Ekpenyong explained that primary healthcare workers were already at the facilities waiting for the PPEs, which would be immediately distributed to centres across the state.
Ekpenyong noted, “we have already commenced distribution of the PPEs. Already, four directors from Odukpani, Calabar Municipality, Akpabuyo and Calabar South were waiting to collect the ones meant for centres within their local government areas. So, we are already at the distribution stage even though we just received the equipment”.
“Currently, we have 3,220 primary health workers in the State.
Each of the health workers would be given 2 sets. These would go a long way to assist protect our health workers and this is due to the proactiveness of Governor Ben Ayade, the Ministry of Health and our partners,” she hinted.
She recalled that the government distributed PPEs severally to health workers across the state in 2020 before the coronavirus pandemic hit Cross River with the lifting of ban on movement.
