By Muhammad Amaan with agency report
The Nigerian Medical Association and the Nigerian Association of Resident Doctors have called on the Federal Government to increase the supply of personal protective equipment in hospitals following the death of a medical doctor and the infection of 15 other health workers from Lassa fever.
The associations further demanded comprehensive medical insurance for doctors, the establishment of biomedical molecular laboratories in all states for quick diagnosis, and the provision of basic amenities, including clean running water and electricity in hospitals.
In separate interviews with PUNCH Healthwise, the leadership of the associations stressed that healthcare workers are dying from preventable infections due to exhaustion, overwork, burnout and inadequate protective equipment, with many hospitals lacking even basic sanitation and running water.
The groups also called for regular training and retraining of healthcare workers on infection prevention and control, the establishment of more testing centres, and better isolation facilities to sustain gains made during the COVID-19 pandemic.
The demand by the NMA and NARD follows the recent death of a senior registrar in the Department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology at Bingham University Teaching Hospital, Dr Salome Oboyi, from Lassa fever.
Dr Oboyi died less than two weeks after developing symptoms of the infection, which she reportedly contracted while attending to an infected patient.
The Nigeria Centre for Disease Control and Prevention (NCDC) on Monday raised an alarm over the increasing spread of Lassa fever among health care workers.
The agency noted that two health workers have been killed, while 15 confirmed cases of Lassa fever have been documented among health care workers in the country.
The Director-General of NCDC, Dr Jide Idris, decried the continued rise in infections among healthcare workers, whom he described as “frontliners.”
Commenting on the matter, the President of the NMA, Professor Bala Audu, expressed sadness over the loss of the doctor and health workers, noting that most Lassa fever patients are asymptomatic when they first present at hospitals, exposing healthcare providers before diagnosis is made.
He urged health workers to be more cautious and called on the government to provide more personal protective equipment.
“I think we just need to be more cautious for the government to provide more protective wear,” he said.
Also, the NARD President, Dr Mohammad Suleiman, described the death of healthcare workers from infections contracted while caring for patients as particularly painful and preventable.
“Any death, especially from something you contracted from a patient you are caring for, is a painful one because it’s preventable. This is our reality. She’s a mother, she has three kids, she has a husband, she has her parents, she’s likely the breadwinner, and then this is happening. It’s painful, and I can tell you up till now our members have not recovered from the shock of her death,” Suleiman said.
He attributed health worker infections to exhaustion, overwork, burnout, and inadequate PPE availability.
“Health workers are exhausted, overworked, and are suffering from burnout, so you are bound to make mistakes, coupled with the fact that there is no PPE available. PPEs that are available don’t go around.
“Ideally, if there’s an outbreak, every patient who raises suspicion, you have to have PPE. And you cannot see one patient with one PPE and then go and see another patient with that same PPE. You have to change it,” he explained.
Dr Suleiman noted that PPE includes not just goggles, face masks, suits and gloves, but also clean running water, which many hospitals lack.
“PPE is not just the goggles, the face mask, the suit and gloves. It’s even clean running water. So when you are talking about PPE, it starts from water, basic sanitation water, before you come to the equipment,” he said.
He called for regular training and retraining of healthcare workers, availability of PPE and running water in hospitals, steady electricity supply, availability of drugs for treating ailments, and development of more testing centres.
The NARD President acknowledged that the government provided isolation centres across the country during COVID-19, but stressed the need to sustain those gains.
“I think in the last couple of years, you must acknowledge that the government has provided isolation centres almost everywhere in the country, especially with COVID-19. You must really give the government kudos.
“I think NCDC did a marvellous job there. But I think we need to sustain it. We need to make sure that the gains we had during COVID, we have not lost them to a point where we are in 2026, and saying Lassa fever has killed a doctor in Nigeria today,” he said.
Dr Suleiman highlighted gaps in infection prevention and control measures in health facilities, noting that healthcare workers should wash their hands between seeing patients to prevent cross-contamination.
He noted that while Nigeria may not be the worst in the world regarding infection control, there is significant room for improvement in protecting healthcare workers from preventable infections.
