Several doctors, nurses and other health workers who walked
away from an Ebola treatment center, Yaba, Lagos, Friday has said that they
quit because of what they described as the lack-luster attitude of the
country’s health officials to the plight of Ebola patients sequestered at the
Center for Infectious Disease Control in Yaba
According to reports from
SaharaReporters members of medical teams sent to Nigeria by the World Health
Organization and Doctors Without Borders had become so frustrated by the Federal
government’s inept response to the Ebola outbreak that they are also
threatening to quit, unless the government’s attitude changes dramatically.
According to the health workers, it took complaints by
families of the victims of Ebola to reporters to force the hands of the
government to move the patients to a cleaner, more humane facility.
A source
who spoke with Sahara reporters said the former facility where patients had been
kept had no functioning water supply and no air-conditioning.
“The families of
patients had to cater for them and pay for some drugs and oxygen, even though the
Nigerian government claimed to have released more than N1.9 billion for
treatment of Ebola victims,” one doctor alleged.
While other insiders confirmed
that there were now seven cases of Ebola patients at the facility with one
victim discharged yesterday after fully recovering from the disease.
They added
that three of the patients were also showing steady improvement while three
were still struggling.
One of the volunteers who quit on Friiday said the
Nigerian government had done little or nothing to cater for consultants and
volunteers who were battling the deadly virus.
“These consultants and
volunteers were not housed, they were not fed, and they were not provided with
transportation to enable them to continue working on site,” said a doctor.
The
medical source added, “Because of the level of exposure of volunteers and
physicians managing Ebola patients, they ought to be housed near the facility
and moved around in a special vehicle to and from the center.”
But the doctors
often return home to their families and had to disinfect their homes on their
own. The sources revealed that only seven Nigerian doctors were on ground at
the center as opposed to 20 needed to take on the challenge of treating and
managing Ebola.
The Nigerian doctors and nurses are being led and trained by an
eight-member team of physicians from the World Health Organization (WHO) and
Doctors Without Borders.
Our sources said the expatriate medical experts were
also threatening to leave, citing the Nigerian government’s failure to recognize
the seriousness of the Ebola disease.
For example, Nigeria’s Minister of
Health, Onyebuchi Chukwu, had not come near the any of the Ebola victims or
given adequate assistance to the medical teams battling the deadly virus.
Instead, the minister struck a deal to accept Nano Silver solutions to treat
Ebola from a yet to be named “Diaspora Nigerian” who the minister claims
“invented” Nano Silver.
The US Food and Drugs Administration has stated that
the Nano Silver solution being paraded in Nigeria as a cure for Ebola is
classified as a pesticide.
The minister in Lagos yesterday said Nigeria has now
abandoned the use of Nano Silver donated by the unnamed Nigeria because an
independent assessment shows Nano Silver can’t treat Ebola.
One irate volunteer
told SaharaReporters that the minister’s acceptance of an untested drug and his
nomination of a notorious former INEC chairman, Maurice Iwu to a committee to
cure Ebola was baffling.
“The solutions could not have been accepted and used
to treat Ebola patients in Yaba because the WHO has also directed that [the
Nano Silver ] are unsafe for treating Ebola, but I am not surprised about the
minister’s behavior considering that he nominated Prof. Iwu, a serial lier who
earlier claimed bitter cola could cure Ebola” said the medical volunteer.
The
source said doctors at the center were currently treating patients to combat
high fevers. “We’re also rehydrating the patients and managing other symptoms
as they present themselves,” the source said. On the prospect of containing the
spread of the virus in Nigeria, one of the consultants said Nigerians should
realize that they are on their own.
“Health authorities in Nigeria are not
doing much to help anyone beyond propaganda,” he said in an angry tone. The
source disclosed that the Lagos State Commissioner of Health came near the
treatment center yesterday.
“He stood far away from the center where patients
are being treated. He ran back and quickly went on air to claim that he had
visited the victims, a claim that was a blatant lie,” our source said.
No comments:
Post a Comment