The Ghana Association of Medical Laboratory Scientists has disclosed that although it was announced by the previous government that frontline workers would be given insurance and extra benefits during the outbreak of the Covid-19 virus, they have yet to receive these benefits.
General Secretary of the Association, Solomon Kwashie, disclosed this on Frontline on Rainbow Radio 87.5FM while answering questions related to the risks associated with their work.
He explained that their work is extremely dangerous because they deal with living organisms such as viruses, bacteria, and fungi, as well as blood from people who have tested positive for infections.
He stated that despite the fact that Ghana’s infrastructure does not support their work, they modify their systems to continue providing services to Ghanaians.
Dr. Solomon Kwashie said that their members who work in our labs do not currently have any form of insurance.
He said when Covid-19 broke out in Ghana, lots of people refused to deal with patients suspected to have the virus or tested positive for it, but they were the first few people who helped in fighting the virus.
‘’Our work is very dangerous because we deal with living organisms. Sometimes we even grow these organisms (viruses, bacteria, fungi) and work on them. We even handle blood of people we know are HIV positive. One of the good things is that because we know some of these things, we protect ourselves. Even though the infrastructure in the country does not support some of these things, we modify our systems to ensure that we provide the services.
With regard to the insurance, we currently don’t have any insurance policy that protects us. So during the Covid-19 era, a lot of people were running away from the virus, but because we are trained to handle live organisms, we were the first people who brought ourselves out to fight the virus, and so we started the contact tracing, the testing and all the rest. Unfortunately, some of our people died. Not only us; some other professionals died.
When asked if they received the incentive packages promised to health workers in the fight against Covid-19 by former President Akufo-Addo, they are yet to receive them.
‘’The government then promised us an insurance package, but we never saw one of it. Nobody in our profession benefitted from that.’’
Dr Gloria Amegatcher, GAMLS’ Public Relations Officer, confirmed this, stating that they have yet to receive these packages despite the risk associated with the era.
‘’We never got these packages. Maybe these packages are on the way coming.’’
By: Rainbowradioonline.com/Ghana
